YouSaid · the spoken record

Martin H. Barnes

lines on the record: 102
first: 2016-10-07
most recent: 2016-10-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That's a harder one to answer. Well, just again. Not to get locked into a view. Forecasting. Kind of all about looking to the past for guidance. You're looking for periods that look vaguely similar. This is what happened then. You assume, well, maybe that's what will happen next time. And models are all based on past relationships But we've been through such incredible structural shifts over the years that the past isn't a very good guide to the future. And that's why the models have all broken down. So be more sensitive to the fact that we're rapidly changing world and relying too much on what worked in the past is a mistake.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's why I give most of my buddy to an outside money management firm to look after because they do a better job than me. So what about on”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I should have held him for longer. Keep your winners. I mean, be obviously sensitive to signs that things are changing. You can put technical stop losses and things in. And I have been in the past guilty of getting attached to losers. Oh, well, maybe they'll come back. Sure.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anyway, it was really smart. They went up in 95 after I bought them and more in 96. And in 97, they kept going up. Can't remember when in'97 the first half. I thought, wow, they've gone up a lot, made a bit of money here, so I sold them. I sold them before the real big game. I mean, they weren't parabolic for that. Now, I probably would never have been smart enough to get out at the top, but I...”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought, wow, this is really, really cool stuff. I completely bought into it. I went out as soon as the conference was over and I bought Nokia, Microsoft, and AOL.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“40 years ago when you were beginning. Oh gosh. Well, in terms of investing. Simple one, I guess, and I know it's out there anyway, but keep your winners and get rid of your losers. And I remember we had one of our conferences in 1995 and we had at least two speakers talking about tech and they blew me away. Really? All the exciting things going on in tech and cell phones.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the profession has changed. You know, a lot of corporations have done away with their... Economics departments, but still a good job and go for it. Be curious, don't be so short-term. Spend all your time pouring over the employment data. Try and figure out what the big friends are. Be disciplined. Read a lot Don't get locked. Don't get locked into a view. Don't think you've got it figured out because you haven't. I've been doing this for over 40 years and I certainly haven't got it figured out.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not a racket, a bat or paddle, if you like. And a whiffle kind of a whiffle ball, and it's basically get the ball over the net and win the points, but it's less intense. It's not as fast moving as Terra, so it's for aging people like me, it's easier on your body, but it's still...”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I've started playing this game, which you don't, I think, know about called pickleball, but some of your listeners will know what this is. It's actually one of the fastest growing games in North America, and it's played with a cross-between table tennis and real tennis, and it's played indoors, outdoors with a bat.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like being outdoors, which is great given that I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I bike. I try not to fall off. I did fall off two years ago and broke my hip. I remember. That's another story. I went to hiking and biking.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Numbers are just that we have access to This data times 100. All over the world. So if it's there, you've got to look at it.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Understanding, but it's slow coming. Dana's great. I love data. As I said, I'm a junkie for data. And in some industries, the retail industry, if you've got minute by minute information on But in the research side, just having a deluge of numbers. You spend all your time pouring over all these numbers instead of just pushing them to the side and sitting back and actually just thinking about things a bit more”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some industries, big data helps you do things better. It's not obvious in the world of forecasting that we have done a better job despite because we've become so short-term people have spent more time Parsing the employment data than thinking about what are the really important big issues here. So we've become way too short term, way too focused on microanalyzing data and not enough focused on catching the big secular structural shifts of what's going on. And I think that applies to policymakers, it applies to economists, and it's too bad. I'm not confident that that's ever going to change now because we've created this big data world and that's what it is.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enormous lag, you know, in terms of the monthly, inflationary data or employment data, it didn't really focus too much on that. You might get some headlines from the newspapers, but there's no way of getting all the detail of that. So now we're just besieged. You can get any data you want from anywhere in the world instantly in more detail than you've got time to analyze. And I would ask you this, has our understanding of how the economy works improved, or are the quality of our forecasts any better despite having all this data? And I would say unequivocally absolutely not. And I spoke earlier about this egregious policy error over the last few years. So having all this data and us all this information.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They called the survey of current business as produced by the Department of Commerce with all the GDP data in it, which forms the basis of any understanding of the economy. That came out in the mail with an enormous lag.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Since you joined the profession. Well, information overload, data overload. Look, when I started, so when I was in BP in the 70s, and even when I was in Wood Mackenzie in the 80s, I had to follow the US economy. No internet, of course. The data we had to do the forecasts and analyze the economy. We had to wait for stuff to come in the mail.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, I mean, the Netflix in Canada is different. We don't get the same content. We get much less content. So I assume the series I mentioned are available in the US. Obviously Narcos is.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I would watch the original. It's subtitles, but the characters are so fantastic. There's a principal woman character that she's amazing, and it's a great gripping story, too, very watchable. The bridge.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what happened. You know, it was like that. There's some great. BBC or British. Detective y kind of ones. There's one called Happy Valley which is superb really Excellent Series Swedish Danish co-production called The Bridge. There's three seasons of it. The bridge. It's called The Bridge. Is that Netflix or Amazon Prime? They might have done a US remake of it.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's kind of a gripping thing to read as well, very obscure. That's probably enough books. All right. I'm going to ask you a question.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not sci-fi, but it's fantasy nonetheless, and it's a sort of medievally kind of thing. But the descriptive writing is hard to beat. I mean, you almost feel as if you're there when he describes scenes and environments and characters. It's the most brilliant descriptive.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much worse. Oh, my reading tastes are very give me some more. A slightly bizarre trilogy is called the Gorman Gast trilogy by Mervyn Peak. Gorman Gast.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of large institutions. The only way to get out is you're insane, but if you say you're insane as a way of getting out, then you're obviously not insane for figuring that one out, so you're screwed. Not supposed to say that.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Read too. It's good. It's good. In terms of non- I guess in the UK they have this wonderful thing called Desert Island Discs. If you had to go to Desert Island Walk. So you can say a Desert Island book for me. I suppose it would be Catch 22, Joseph Heller.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The most recent governor of the Bank of England is called End of Alchemy. It's a little bit self-serving. I think it's a good book, but I wish he had kind of said those things publicly when he was Governor of the Bank of England. Why is he saying them now?”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I've heard of that book. Yeah, you've heard of that one. But I liked David Wessel's book in Fed We Trust. Mm-hmm. In terms of, again, it's a very easy read. Kind of takes you into what it must have been like at the Fed during that period with a sleepless night and a panic and every day you go into the office and some other ghastly thing has happened. I find that's a good way of capturing what it must have been like to be in the Fed at that time. A very recent one that I read is Mervyn King.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I've never read it. It's got great anecdotes. It's not. He wasn't a gifted writer, but it's not a big book. But in terms of understanding the destructiveness of inflation, yeah, that's good. I think in terms of what we went through with the crash, there's so many books about the crash. And of course, somebody called Barry Ritholtz wrote one about bailouts.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, forget the trash, but I mean, I think my favorite book from going back to the most serious investment stuff that I think anybody going into our... business should read it was written quite a while ago now is Charles Kinderberger's Manias Panics and Crashes it's a wonderful read and just describing How these market overshoots and crashes occur, and it's wonderful anecdotes. It's easy to read. It's not a huge tome. Sedu, that's one of my favorites. Another kind of really obscure book that nobody paid any attention to when it first came out, but it kind of got popular a few years ago when QE. started was by an obscure Scottish guy called Adam Fergus he wrote this book called When Money Dies. Oh, sure. And it was about German hyperinflation. Yes. Again, not particularly well written, actually, but wonderful anecdotes.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was brought up in a household where books were everywhere, so I've always enjoyed reading trash as well as... Better quality stuff.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, look I'm very conservative. Maybe it's being Scottish, whatever. I'm not on mementum high-flying following fads get a guy. So I'm much more attracted to the... The old style Peter Lynch kind of view of investing for the long term value So people with that perspective, you know, I guess you would put Warren Buffett in that category much more than the short-term, very clever traders, John Paulson making a killing in the mortgage back. Wonderful. I'd love to be able to do that, but it's not going to happen. That's not going to happen.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because a lot of economists just write stuff just for the sake of talking about the economy as if the economy is the end point. Who cares what the economy's doing? If there's no market significance to it, so I very much learn to try, always have some market implications of everything we wrote about. Not necessarily short-term, it could be very long term, but make it relevant. And that's very much a lesson I learned at BCAA.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, look, I've been lucky over the years, and it's partly because BCA is a very well respected firm for a very long time, to have met many, many smart people, the Henry Count legends, if you like, the Henry Kaufmann's. I've met all these people, we've had them speak at our conferences, I've learned from them. I guess if I had to pick one person, I mean, obviously I've learned from lots of people. Tony Beck, who was the principal of BCA, he's a guy that hired me almost 30 years ago. What did I learn from him? Well, BCA's focus has always been... Helping our clients, there's a big difference working for a firm that's selling research to working from a broker which just turns out bits of paper. So you have to add value when people are paying hard cash for what you're doing. And you have to pass the so what test.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Constantly, even the Labour government that was in power had lost control, that was a lesson in the evils of stake. Excessive socialism, if you like. living through the Volcker Thatcher years where we saw complete reversal. That's very interesting. Bringing inflation back down again.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I've been doing this for over 40 years, so I've been through a lot of regime shifts in various areas where even the people that might have been my mentors, experienced people were struggling along with everybody else what this all meant. So it was new for everybody. So we talked earlier about how I joined BP in 1973. So going through that first oil crisis when everything had to be shifted was... There was nobody to mentor me through that because they hadn't been through themselves either. That was a regiment shift. Living through... The inflation of the UK in the 70s where the unions were running amok, we had the so-called Winter of Discotet, there were strikes”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Career along? Well This might be a slightly strange way to answer it, but in a sense, my mentors were more events than people. And by that I mean...”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so. I think so. I mean Europe, yeah. Europe has now loosened the constraints on fiscal policy to some degree. So I think we've turned a corner on that. I mean, we're not ready anywhere really to launch massive fiscal stimulus. We're past the austerity for sure”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I mean, you made a bad situation worse. When countries are already on their knees, you know, just trying to force austerity”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In some places, but don't forget we had massive stimulus during the downturn. 0809. So, the austerity, in a sense, was. Just pulling back from that extreme levels of stimulus that we had in terms of what? In case of the Eurozone.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, so the idea that central banks should raise their inflation targets from two now to three or four he thinks is just crazy. Negative interest rates don't make any sense to him. Right. So for him, inflation is still evil. I don't have quite as strong a view as he does, but he was the guy that said in motion a sea change in the global economic environment for the better.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I just spent an hour into having this kind of chat with him actually at our conference which we had earlier this week. And I mean, he is a product of his time. The idea of any inflation at all to him is still anathema.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Greenspan. I mean, there was a big difference between greenspan's first half of his term and the second half. There was a reasonable number of dissents in the first half. Second half, you did not dare contradict the maestro. It became very anti-democratic. And I think Bernanke. Change that for the better, but Bernanke wasn't as democratic as many people think. I mean, I was chatting, we just had our conference here and we had a former Fed governor there and he was. Bernanke ruled the Fed with a much stronger fish than is the popular perception. That's very.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Healthy as a baby. Generally, just about talking and different opinions. This would never have happened with Volcker. Well, no, he pulled, and it would even have happened with Ben Bernanke, actually.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they've enough dissension within the Fed, I think, just in terms of keeping some of the discontents happy. To do it that way as well. I think they're a little bit out of control in terms Janet has lost control of the group”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Break this perception that their slaves to the market. If the market's not discounting it, we can't do it. And they've got to get over that.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The economy doesn't really need it. I think you should do it just to get it over with. Right. I mean, unfortunately, if they do, we'll still have the will they won't, they just push them to the next year. Right. So then the question, they've got to...”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think these should. Personally, I don't think it matters a whole lot. A 25 basis point. Oh, a half a percent interest rate. Neither here nor there.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, growth is lower now, maybe it might still get the 2% inflation eventually, but it's probably 3.5% to 4. Or even three.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just the nominal growth was kind of a ballpark. And if trend growth was two and a half and you had two and a half percent inflation, therefore four and a half fish would be the right level for bond yields.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That it was been diminishing returns from monetary stimulus generally. I think we're at the point here. Whatever problems are out there facing the global economy or the US economy, I don't believe it's anything to do with the level of interest rate.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Generally, they are way too obsessed with monetary policy. If there's anything that drives me nuts these days, among many things do, but it's just this obsession with when the federal raise rates and the nuance of every utterance that comes out of these policymakers' mouths, it doesn't matter that much.”
2016-10-07 · Masters in Business · Interview With Martin H. Barnes: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source