There's Always Something to Do by Christopher Risso-Gill

Author:Christopher Risso-Gill [Risso-Gill, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Mcgill Queens Univ Pr
Published: 2011-02-09T14:00:00+00:00

12

Dealing with Adversity

AT THE END OF 1989 the Value Fund posted its fifteenth year of unbroken positive returns, gaining a respectable 10%. Although this was less than the Dow Jones or the TSE, it still firmly supported the fund’s remarkable fifteen-year compound growth record of 22%. Peter was disappointed but not despondent and the coming year seemed to hold promise. The worst of the SEC investigation of Drexel Burnham now appeared to be over, so that there was good reason to expect an improvement in the high yield market, and Westar, the fund’s largest and most problematic position, looked as though it would be resolved profitably by the intervention of Sam Belzberg.

From Peter’s perspective the uncertainties in the political world held the promise of opportunity, rather than spelling disaster. His overall mood comes across in the journal entry for Christmas Day:

Noriega, the Panamanian tyrant, is hiding out in, of all places, the Vatican Embassy after the US invasion; Ceausescu of Romania and his wife have been summarily executed, demonstrating that failed communist dictators cannot expect to be immune from the consequences of their tyranny; and Bernstein conducted a Christmas performance of Beethoven’s Ninth at the Schauspielhaus in East Berlin. The orchestra was composed of players from the four allied powers that governed the city after the war and from East and West Germany. At the end of the performance he recited Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,”

“… All men become brothers

Under the sway of thy gentle wings.”

Is this order or chaos? Here at home we exchanged presents, warmth, and love, mine were Churchill, The Last Lion by William Manchester and a multitude of stuff from “Liar’s Poker.”

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