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Sweden is heavily indebted? Its sovereign rating has never been anything other than AAA. Its debt/GDP is one of the lowest in the EU and, more broadly, in the developed world.

Indeed... They are truly the servants of the people, the brightest and the best.

Far be it from me to suggest the US has a great corp tax code. A corp doing a big inversion would still save themselves some money... For instance, the big Pfizer-Allergan deal was supposed to reduce Pfizer's effective tax rate from 23.4% to arnd 18% (moving from New York to Dublin). So there...

It's a well-known fact that actual effective tax rates are much lower than the headline numbers in some countries. One of these countries is the US of A, where the tax code is convoluted and contains a lot of "useful" loopholes and exploits.

It's unlikely to be Ruffer, who is supposed to be "Mr Fiddy"...

How is this a change? The guy has been rolling this exact same trade since mid last year, if memory serves.

The mammoth is back at it again...

It's obvious... We'll all be the policemen trying to catch the shoplifters who abuse JD.com's shopping technology.

Yea, so this notion of balance sheet as defined by simply "how much cash is sent out the door" is probably pretty universal... This can be constrained and often is. However, your typical "off-balance sheet" derivative, like an on-mkt swap of some sort, will give you leverage with no balance...

I am really not sure what "balance sheet" means for derivatives exactly. In my mind, "balance sheet" is a concept which is primarily associated with cash securities. For derivatives, I guess "total working capital" is the closest notion, since, in accounting terms, it represents cashflows...

I can confirm that this is, in fact, known as a "stupid" in the mkt... Sometimes, people also use "strip", but it's mostly when referring to options on different underlying securities.

Depends on the asset class, I suppose... You can use working capital (e.g. total margin, haircut, etc), gross notional and/or MV, gross risk factor (e.g. vega or delta or whatevers), on top of VAR. You can also limit exposure based on max DD in stress tests. Then pick the "worst of" to enforce.

Bluecrest just started using leverage to the max permitted by their arrangements. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these arrangements were renegotiated in light of them becoming a family office, to give them more capacity. As to how risk gets allocated, it's really hard to...

I think it really is a bit of everything, but, mostly, it's a matter of "why not". Both Mike Platt and Stevie probably feel that, if there's one thing that they're good at, it's deploying leverage (after all, that's what being a hedge fund is mostly about). Now that they don't have pesky...

Smith's views are hotly debated, since he wrote two major works and they appear to be somewhat in contradiction. And yes, he appears to lean more towards the "libertarian" perspective (which is why he's perceived to be the inspiration for all the aficionados of "free markets"), but even there...

Well before Milton Friedman, there was Adam Smith, whose views on the subject are predictably sensible. There's a wealth of really insightful comments in The Wealth of Nations (pun intended). He truly was one of the greats!

There is evidence to suggest that the Founding Fathers were well aware of the nuanced nature of these subjects. Not that this should surprise anyone. “If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation...

I have offered you a variety of counterarguments already. Moreover, as I mentioned before, better people than I have done the same, if you only bother to look. Since you appear to be a bit of a student of American History, you may want to read what some of the Founding Fathers opined on the...

Now you're just being silly... But that's OK, since that too shall pass.

Indeed, none of it matters... Like the old adage goes, opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one. We will just have to live with the fact that our opinions differ. I am pretty sure that I should be able to handle that.