10,000 years of a geometric return series - revisited now for time in years to get above a threshold

This is a re-look at a post I did in September. Then, I ran a "return engine" 10,000 years x 1000 times to look at the shape of the annualized geometric return paths that come out of that multiplicative process. The idea then was that there were a ton of differences in the paths that kinda iron themselves out over ~infinite time. The problem now being: none of us have infinite time and the early years -- economists or physicists new to econ or finance notwithstanding -- can be pretty hard or unnerving.  So now, the question today: how bad can it be -- or how long can it take -- over the foreseeable and unforeseeable future? I am sure there are better mathy ways to do this kind of post but I don't know. As I have beat my own drum before, I am an amateur!

Reminiscence of my Brother in Law.

Some thoughts about a recent Zoom memorial

A dream about pain and war

I had a dream a few nights ago about pain and war and raising a family. None of these ideas cohere, really, but here are some post-waking remnants of thought that eventually, after a few minutes, evanesced a bit like smoke in a high-ceilinged, well ventilated room. 

To whom does a man say “I’m in pain” these days? His kids? No, they’re to be 100% shielded; their world is the future. Wife/girlfriend? Maybe, I suppose, but it’s always fraught; with enough prodding they will eventually desire stronger, higher status men, their princess-day vows and protestations and fake “unconditionality” notwithstanding...I mean, eventually even the feminists will turn away though we know they already have. A boss or co-worker? You’re fired! or passed over. Social media? Even cannibals will eat less of you. Other dudes? Maybe not in this weak age. Anyway, other men should generally be brothers and partners not therapists or confessors. Only one vector remains I think: inward deeply, like Augustine or Buddha or Montaigne, though none of these were warriors (well, Montaigne did serve at the siege of Rouen)...then out...out to the world, like the steppe Khans with horse and bow and a vast continent opening in front or maybe like the scourge of the North Sea, complete with longboat and axe and seax and spear. F’n McClay, and Goldmund, had it right all along but maybe I already knew it; idk. Thus sprouts the toxic, stoic myth of men, of course, but none who are not men or God can really judge any of this and I submit judgment of me, now, to me and God alone. My kids can vote, if they want, but I own the deciding one.

Even my second coffee could not shake me of the faint scent of the saddle or of the North Sea and polished seax. I fold laundry, now, and complete a dishwasher load. Then I oil my four seax with a fine textured mineral oil that is well-matched to their carbon steel. 

On Adverse Possession

In 2004 I moved into a new house with a peach of a neighbor.  He lived next to me in a 7br mansion on the river. The houses across the street from us were 1 or 2bedroom econo homes, so a bit of a class divide depending on how you look at it if I can still say that kind of thing.  To give a flavor of the man, the neighbors across the street told me that when they complained about his contractors backing into their driveway – drives that were over a peat bog and thus degrade easily – his response, as paraphrased by one man that heard it, “I don’t care about you little people, I’m rich.”  Maybe he was or wasn’t, idk. The house signaled status but more on that later. In appearance he was a blue blazer, tan pants, and bow-tie guy.  But sartorial descriptions are banal. Here is a better way to frame it: he had a condescending smirk perfectly located halfway between his Harvard MBA bowtie and a mop of past-the-right-age prep-school hair that Tyson would have loved as a target.