Thanks. You might find this a useful way to think about money: https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/the-real-purpose-of-money-6f4ecbc5e2fe
If the process of making money puts you in contact with more idiots than smart people you like, change process.
You might want to add the Soviet spy in the German embassy in Tokyo, Richard Sorge. He told Stalin in October 1941 that the Japanese were going south to Singapore, Malaya and the Philippines, not north into Siberia. This information allowed Stalin to move 400000 fresh troops from the Amur River border with Japanese-occupied Manchuria to the outskirts of Moscow, which led to the Soviet counterattack of December 5 that threw the Germans back and ended their hopes of taking Moscow. Here's the link to the movie Spy Sorge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7X2V4Lup_Y
Sorge was caught and executed by Japanese in 1943.
Living under Article Five's umbrella in Latvia, I was later than you in forecasting the war: February 14 (https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/putins-empire-restoration-project-in-ukraine-f050a8ecc604).
What year on February 24? Since you have a young son, I expect long after me.
February 24 is an interestingly revolutionary date:
1. Paris' 1848 revolution broke out, triggering Europe's Springtime of Peoples' revolutions.
2. The 1988 anti-Armenian pogrom in Sumgait, Azerbaijan the first violent outbreak of the nationalism genie that the USSR could not bottle back up again.
3. Cuba's war of independence began in 1895.
4. Estonian independence day.
Many thanks for reading.
Real estate is a contact sport. I'm happy I did it--and happier I no longer do it. That's why I call it investment rugby.
The moments in history and economics cycles when a complete amateur can get well paid just for showing up and harvest the difference between real and perceived risk are very rare.
Postwar Ukraine will offer one such moment provided the war doesn't evolve into a frozen conflict.
