Financial expert Cullen Roche understands the power of 2paragraphs. When the Euro was spinning out of control in 2012, Mr. Roche published the article “George Soros Sums up Europe in 2paragraphs” on his always relevant website Pragmatic Capitalism. (Roche founded the site in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008.) Roche also wrote the popular paper “Understanding the Modern Monetary System” which has been downloaded more than 28,000 times. When not writing insightful big picture commentary on Monetary Realism and portfolio construction, he’s generating positive alpha (high risk adjusted returns) for his clients at his San Diego firm Orcam Financial Group. (Orcam backwards spells Macro.)
Roche believes “the nation is woefully undereducated on the matters of money, finance and economics” so he spends a lot of time on-camera (CNN, BCC, Bloomberg) explaining how the world of finance works. He recently compared the monetary system to football. “If you want to play ball in the US economy you have to get a bank account and use bank money. The government determines the field and referees the game but the banks really control how many balls get issued and how.” Roche is the first to admit this is an oversimplified analogy but as he says “it might help some people better understand why we have the system we have and why we decide to interact with it.” He believes people aren’t investing because they just don’t understand the point. “I spend most of my time these days teaching people how to build (savings) portfolios and training them to feel comfortable doing it on their own. But you have to want to do it or you’re destined to a world of guaranteed 3.5% losses on your savings.”
