Mark is an intellectual investor. In his book, The Dao of Capital , he combines the rigorous logic of libertarian Austrian economics with the Chinese philosophical tradition of harmonious flow of natural forces. (Hint: Central banks aren’t a natural force.) Forbes magazine called it “one of the most important books of the year, or any year for that matter.” But what I like about Mark is that he’s fun to talk to. You can tell by choosing almost any quote at random from Dao : The real black swan problem of stock market busts is not about a remote event that is considered unforeseeable; rather it is about a foreseeable event that is considered remote. The vast majority of market participants fail to expect what should be, in reality, perfectly expected events. Mark is also an unrepentant Heartlander, born and raised (and raising his family) in Michigan, a graduate of Kalamazoo College who can still recite his college yell... Breck-ki-ki-kex! Ko-ax! Ko-ax! Whoa-up! Whoa-up! Paraballou! Paraballou! Kalamazoo! Kazoo! Kazoo! So, what did he do when he got rich? He started a goat farm. Idyll Farms, in Northport, Michigan, produces artisanal chèvre from pastured goats (not grain-fed, cooped-up nannies). The cheese has won Best in Class at the World Championship Cheese Contest and multiple awards, including Best All-Milk Cheese, from the American Cheese Society. And if praise
like that from the American Cheese Society doesn’t make your heart skip a beat, you should get out of the Heartland and stay out. Mark seemed to be the right person to ask about the main thing that puzzles me about the Heartland – its vast array of undervalued assets. He and I discussed how the Heartland is full of famously sensible, friendly, and hard- working people. It contains a large portion of the most productive agricultural land in the world. The housing stock is extensive and cheap. Industrial sites and commercial locations are ready and waiting. Natural disasters – minus the occasional tornado – are rare. The climate is temperate. The location is central to every form of transportation.
The Heartland would boom if millennials, and “knowledge workers” in general, wanted to live there, but those people would want to live in the Heartland only if the Heartland boomed.
We talked about how the Heartland has water to shame the West, educational attainment that’s the envy of the South, and a freedom from congestion about which the East can only dream. “Why isn’t the Heartland booming?” I said. Mark described it as “a chicken and egg problem.” He said that the Heartland would boom if millennials, and “knowledge
30 June 2018
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