Weekend Reading #343

This is the three-hundredth-and-forty-third weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 28th November 2025.

To receive a copy each week directly into your inbox, sign up here.

*****

What we're thinking.

Markets have rebounded this week in all the right ways. Most leaders have gone back up although there has been a nuance in the AI trade as we have discussed ad nauseum. Nvidia seems to be out of favour this week and Google is in. Commodity names all round are back near highs and the correction appears to be over. We are never quite sure, but price action is suggestive of this outcome. Even crypto has rebounded which one would expect given the extent of the recent selling. With a month to go until year end the base case has to be a continued move higher but as ever who knows. Not us. We just make out best guess and try not to lose too much money while running winners as long as we can.

What we're doing.

After 2 months in Asia exploring we have now been in the suburbs of Los Angeles getting some perspective on how the other side of the world lives. And let me tell you that in this part of America, the answer is extremely well. The (San Fernando) Valley as it is called is just lovely. Beautiful weather, perfectly manicured streets, refined and as I have termed it, the land of sheer prosperity and gluttonous abundance. The local Ralph's has so much choice one is simply paralyzed with indecision simply looking for olive oil. I played golf and when choosing a Gatorade was presented with no less than 9 flavour options. America is the most prosperous nation in the history of the world and around here it shows. The back and forth of deranged social media is not relevant here as people go about their days in their Teslas. A scenic 30-minute drive through the mountains found Malibu slowly being rebuilt post the fires but is no less picturesque (and maybe even more so). The only part which was rather sad was the slide into irrelevance of Hollywood. We completed a perfunctory day seeing the so-called walk of fame and associated spots. It was rather quiet as tourists these days have better things to do it seems. And who can blame them given the state of the industry, it's lack of new ideas and the younger generations flocking to social media. It felt more like a museum but I guess that is also ok. Things do change.
 
As we have been doing on our entire trip, we have been comparing the pros and cons of living in each place we visited. And in this part of the world there is only really one con. And that is the very high cost of living. It is the most expensive place we have been to yet, even more so than London. Yet there is a far more important question to ask. What is the cost/benefit rather than simply the cost. When making the decision to leave the UK over the past year or so, the obvious thing was that for all the high cost of living, we didn't feel we were getting much in return. Poor weather, high taxes, a collapsing system, rising antisemitism and just general decay. So, on a comparative basis the question has been "Compared to how much more expensive/cheaper it is, is it that much better to live or worse?" For example. If Singapore is a similar cost, are we getting similar in return or better. Cape Town is roughly half the cost of living relative to London (for us anyway). But is it half as good? No chance. It's way higher. So far as The Valley is concerned, our research suggests life is as much as 50% more expensive than London but is it 50% better? It sure seems at least that much better if not even double as good. Positivity, energy, innovation and sheer prosperity and gluttonous abundance. But its rather cool. Please note these are SUBJECTIVE views so don't get your knickers in a knot if your opinion differs. But please remember. Life is for living.
 
We leave tomorrow to spend the next month in Florida. First in Orlando (for the kids) and then Miami (to check it out). More from there! DC

What we're reading.
 
The Cartel is the second book in Don Winslow's Mexican Narcos series and is even better than the first. It continues the story of the characters introduced in the first one. I'm onto the third one now and hope to wrap it up this week before moving onto to something different for a while. Being in LA so close to the border here does rather bring it all to life too! DC  
 
Jakarta made headlines this week after toppling Tokyo to become the largest city in the world, with 41.9m people, toppling Tokyo which has gone to #3, with Dhaka in Bangladesh in #2. Naturally, the downsides are quite acutely highlighted: pollution, (legendary) traffic, income inequality etc. The list goes on. Yet with a hinterland of the remaining 240m people in Indonesia, Jakarta as the beating heart of Indonesia’s economy in terms of business and politics enjoys the enviably low ranking closer to the bottom of the cost of living rankings, coming in with a cost of living index (according to Numbeo) of 28. The benchmark of 100 is New York City – for easy reference, the swiss come in taking the top 6 (Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Lugano and Bern), above 100 and ahead of NYC, with San Francisco at 90.7 and Singapore at 85.3. Definitely makes for some interesting arbitrage.
 
In other news, this report from S&P downgrading Tether’s ability to maintain USDT’s peg to the USD should (but probably hasn’t yet) raise some alarm bells. The fight for the share of hearts and minds in terms of the USD stablecoin of choice has so far been pretty much won by Tether, which stands miles ahead of its (probably) better established competitor Circle (with USDC), which has somehow remained dominant in the “developed” world. USDT, on the other hand, exists almost as a parallel alternative currency in many emerging markets, partly due to its availability on multiple chains, though for those who care to dig, there seems to be an uncannily large number of USDT around. Perhaps the collateral isn’t as solid as it’s made out to be – that’s pretty much the gist behind the S&P report. But as long as everyone believes 1 USDT is worth $1, then it is… right? EL

What we're listening to.
Apocalypto is the craziest, most violent movie I've ever watched but its brilliant. Set in the early 1500s it tells the story of the Mayans one way or another. It is a Mel Gibson film and was made around 20 years ago in a time where these kinds of movies were more acceptable. It gave me nightmares - literally. But it's well worth a watch for the curious minded souls with a strong disposition. DC

What we're listening to.
Robert Waldinger is the current custodian of the world's longest running study into human happiness. I've written about this study before and its conclusion that what drives happiness is the quality of one's close relationships rather than many other obvious factors that are often pointed to. This podcast appearance highlighted one new nugget of information - the difference between men and women. Waldinger says that mostly there are not many differences between sexes in terms of what drives happiness. But there was one interesting discovery. When asked late in life what was life's biggest regret, men answered not spending enough time with loved ones mainly due to work. When women were asked the same question, their answer was different. Women, more than anything, say they regretted placing so much weight on what other people thought of them. On this nugget I offer no conclusions, only that it must surely be food for thought.  DC