Best Posts Of All Time
By Tim Knight -
Over the course of its long history, the Slope of Hope has accumulated literally tens of thousands of posts. On this page, we have gathered up the very best of the best, drawn from many years of writing about a wide variety of subjects. These posts are in no particular order, as they are intended to be browsed at your leisure for the purpose of entertainment and education, as opposed to serving as an historical chronicle.
These posts have been curated into categories. Click on any category which interests you and click on any individual post in that category to see the post. This page will remain open so that you can browse as many different topics as you like.
Ex Squeeze Me
My tale of my car being hit by someone I know
The Passport
Let’s just say my threshold for what constitutes a serious life problem is pretty low.
Good Boy
What a homeless dog at the Home Depot parking lot taught me.
My Life as a Stand-Up
The similarities between being a stand-up comic and being whatever I am today.
The Virgin Suicides
Even while vacationing on a tropical paradise, I get contemplative and morose.
Dual Memories
Moose at Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Tempus Fugit
How I manage my time (and why I have so much of it)
The Old College Try
Reflections on the college application process
Beach Tales
Phuket tidal waves and flooding.
Not Guilty
The college admissions scandal hits close to home
L”Chaim
My horrifying encounter with life coaches
Sputtering to a Stop
Watching the world slow down just prior to the shutdown
The Rabbit’s Habit
My local Whole Foods had all the Aloe Vera leaves you might want.
Parental Perspective
Reflections on the college admissions scandal
Remembrances of Things Past
I get a first-hand taste of just how different it is in a post-Covid world
In Hot Water
I am confronted with a home problem that took some figuring out
Life Crushed Flat
A long essay is my attempt at a love letter to my wife
A Love Story
The honey-sweet tale of how I fell in love
Softbank’s $4 Billion Pizza
One of my best posts of the whole year, a take-down of Zuma.
Public and Private
Public and private jobs and how they compare in our society
Un-American
Why free enterprise is now dead in the once-great United States
Financial Cold War
Mutually-assured fiscal destruction
Modern Monetary Theory
This long essay was a labor of love, and quite educational
Too Soon
The great ideas of the Internet bubble, finally come to life
This is War
Binkius Hippo brings us up to speed on the reality of the trade war
Oh Hi Mark to Market
The utterly unreliable data from Zillow
It’s Not Getting Any Smaller
My take-down of gold kooks who used this tired phrase as an excuse for their lame-ass, always-goes-down investment.
Softbank’s Doppelganger
How CMGI compares to its modern-day equivalent.
The Effect of Asset Inflation on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
An examination of the economy and the coining of progressive inflation.
The Joy of Being Overpaid
Reflections on when I got a big paycheck from someone else for a while.
An Extraordinary Tale
A lengthy tale of ComputerLand and an amazing legal battle
We Can’t Go Back
Why things will never be the same after Covid-19
What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?
Is there any reason to go to college anymore?
American Whirl
Examining the sea-change in the American Girl zeitgeist
To Boldly Go
Captain Kirk was a lusty chap, wasn’t he?
God Is Dead
Why has hubris stopped being punished, as in the days of old?
Milquetoast Goofus
Another cultural take-down from Tim
A Sale of Two Titties
My favorite post on the college admissions scandal.
Snap Judgments
Tim totally loses it at the airport.
The Charlie X Solution
My response to the Charlie Hebdo killings. I think this is some of the finest writing I’ve ever done. Sadly, the world has not taken me up on my brilliant plan.
La Dolce Vita
Retirement isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Idiot Wind
In which Tim goes to a Dylan concert and judges the hippies
Peak College
A deep dive into the Varsity Blues scandal.
When Ummmm Gets You Fired
The gold medal winner for political correctness gone totally berserk.
Real Science
Let’s take a look at what science was telling us from my textbook
Rot
Work Hard? Be Nice? Out with you!
Black Girls Code
If I worked at an actual publication they would never print this one
Race and Place
Different races living in harmony
Captain Moral!
Captain Marvel: man or myth?
Harmony at Gunpoint
An examination of the outstanding We Have Been Harmonized book
God As a Dog
A tear-jerking post about the death of my beloved Kobe. Tissues required.
Seven Years Ago
The tragic loss of a brilliant engineer.
A Friend’s Brush with Death
A former employee of mine discovers what it’s like to be at death’s door.
The Shroud
The death of a local Stanford student
Our Gang of Unfortunates
The sad tale of some little rascals.
Finger on the Trigger
A guest post about depression, suicide, and strength.
Perfect Palo Alto
In which I examine the hiring of guards at the train tracks to try to reduce the number of Palo Alto high school students throwing themselves in front of locomotives.
The Final Blow
We bid farewell to BDI
Dutch
The death of a Slope legend
The Virgin Suicides
Even while vacationing on a tropical paradise, I get contemplative and morose.
Opal the Miracle Chicken
A touching tale from the poultry
What Expiring Bubbles Look Like
A prescient post from NFTRH just before the bubble did, in fact, pop.
Worst. Timing. Ever.
The electronic brokerage E*Trade was bought at the worst possible moment.
Sand Castles and Fed Waves
Reflections on Q1 of 2020
Bubble in the Level
The pitch-perfect charts that were following the collapse
It’s Finally Broken
The Dow Industrials collapses 2,000 points (boy, those were the days)
A Short History of Market Crashes
Springheel Jack walks us through the carnage.
The Carrington Event
The sun could snuff out modern civilization instantly
Top Tick Tyler
In which I rant about how ZeroHedge seems to inadvertently call major turning points, and how their dire predictions really never come true.
Melt-Up Media Morons
An overview of the luminaries that warned of a “market melt-up” in 2018. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen.
About Last Night
Elon Musk top-ticks the price of DOGE with his strange SNL hosting gig
9/11 and the Fourth Turning
The predictive power of a single book
The End of Excess
I long for the day when these insane extremes will be nothing but memories
Fed Panics. Tim Cheers.
The Federal Reserve goes absolutely “all in” to save the rich
A Crucial Weekend
The last big weekend before the crash stopped in its tracks
Liquid Assets
Cryptocurrencies and Lake Bonneville
Highlights for Children
Will America’s deficit be gone in a few years as promised? Read on!
Is the Difference Permanent?
In which I consider whether the permanent “Central Banker Put” and the extinction of bear markets might be permanent or not.
Two Junkies
A comparison of central banks to heroin distributors
Hosed
Spraying gasoline on a burning maelstrom.
Powell’s Pathetic Perversion
Treatise on why exactly I have such a bug up my ass about the Fed
Pain-Free Debt
Trillions and Trillions (say it in a Carl Sagan voice)
Federal Preserves
An excursus on why I’m better than the Federal Reserve.
Cheater
The game of Monopoly as an allegory for the Federal Reserve
The Influence of Fed Balance Sheet Growth
A deep dive into why the Fed’s shenanigans push the markets around
A Nation of Shrieking Toddlers
Ten years of being bottle-fed by the Fed has its side effects
Candy Cane Horses
A Christmas memory from Louisiana’s past
Lifeboats and Titanics
Musings from Georgia about why maybe Palo Alto isn’t so special after all
The Ox Bow Incident
Digging into my childhood for a Mississippi memory
When Internet Zillions Slipped My Grasp
A long and fascinating epic
Loma Prieta Memories
The earthquake of 1989 is brought back to life
Trade Shows of Yesteryear
I reflect upon trade shows and how they’ve changed
XVIII
The 18th anniversary of the September 11th attacks
Ego Salieri
A long post about my career and some bitter disappointments along the way.
Extension Cord
The hero-worship of Elon Musk
Scheduled to Be Slayed
Who will get zapped in the 2022 bear market?
Streetwise
It’s about Zachary, who lives on the streets of Palo Alto. It also prompted a generous response from Slopers who sent him a surprising amount of cash to help.
Keeping It Real
In which I go off on Dennis Gartman on his flip-flopping and, shall we say, revisionism.
Gartman: the final fade
Dennis Gartman stumbles off into the sunset, in yen terms
Into the Wild
The tragic tale of a young man who ventured into Alaska
One Fund’s Instant Destruction
Rolex, cufflinks, tears
Deconstructing the Crypto Genius
Piece by piece
Still Alive
I never thought I’d do a post about Paul Williams, but here it is
Casey Serin Reincarnated
I am reminded of another greasy huckster from years gone past
Inspiration from Hypocrites
Alan Watts was a drunk. So what?
Not Even Worth a Binder
In which I decide there’s absolutely nothing about Martin Armstrong worth considering.
Elon Musk Biography Review
A review and exploration of the big book about the big guy
Forgive and Forget
On the subject of forgiveness
Much Good Has Sprung From Misfortune
Some thoughts on how bad news can be good news in disguise
Something I Learned
About what it means to have a sense of purpose
Jesus in a Bright Red Cup
A deep dive into my view of true Christianity
Misremembering
Deep thoughts on life and karma
Raindrops and the Ocean
One of my “meaning of life” posts, inspired by honeybees
The Egg
Existential philosophy comes to Slope.
Blessings In Disguise
A look back at my life’s misfortunes and how they transformed themselves into positives, once some time had passed.
They’re a Person Too
Behaving decently toward your fellow human beings.
On Corruption
What do I mean when I say the stock market is corrupted?
A Radical New School
Allow me to propose an entirely new way of education
The Fingerprint of a Moment
I believe our perception of time is extremely limited and misleading
Pendulum
Perhaps my favorite post of the year, examining political shifts over time
Generation XX
Deep reflections on the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
Iowa Kaka
The train wreck of an app in the Iowa Caucus
Hitler High
An amusing overreaction on the part of Palo Alto’s government
Derailed
The dumb, dumb, dumb California High Speed Rail fiasco
Decision 2024
Getting several steps ahead analyzing elections to come
Via Mundi
Political manipulations in the economy – – a pretty epic post.
Rage Against the Wrong Machine
One of my favorite posts of the entire year. Riots, mayhem, and the Fed
Old School Fake News
A favorite tale from the time of Abraham Lincoln
2024
Looking ahead to the next election, believe it or not
Fetterman for the Win
The oh-so-awesome Lt. Gov. of Pennsylvania
Yodel For Me, You Sap
Using the market to get re-elected in 2020
Comedy Gold
Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman go off the deep end
The Peanut Butter Manifesto
Reflections on China and their efforts to control their citizens
Gulag Reflections
Thoughts about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece
Porking Out
Some serious DEI-grifting in the once-great city of San Francisco
The It-Didn’t-Happen Rally
A study of how the market rallies based on what isn’t happening
What Support Means In Human Terms
Defining from a real-world perspective those simple horizontal lines I’m always drawing
Ladders and Mountains
How the fear of heights and trading risk are correlated.
The IFD Trap
A fascinating psychological phenomenon
It’s Not a Good Feeling
What it feels like to close everything and be risk-free
The Era of Revenge
How social mood affects society’s desire for vengeance
Taipei and Human Codes
A quirky experience while traveling in Asia
Dealing with Disaster
How do you handle a trading train-wreck?
Numb Nation
My prediction that the VIX was about to explode (it did……)
The Tough Part
Considering the challenges of being steadfast during market turmoil
Boomerangs and Greased Logs
You’ll want to read it just to figure out why I titled it this way
Complacency to Fear and Back
An exploration of sentiment better than any we’ve seen before
Dying from the Inside
Ever want to know where “Guh” came from?
Gratitude Attitude
The worst blow-back I ever received on Twitter was when I said something nice!
Frogs From the Sky
The plague comes to Silicon Valley
Silicon Shark Jumps the Shark
A brilliant overview of the so-called Startup Castle. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link, and it goes straight to a 404 page. Figures.
Do You Want to Know a Secret?
Wherein I tear apart another idiotic startup.
Lucky Lucky Girl
Snarky, no-holds-barred take-down of Marissa Mayer
The Time Warp Again
If I may say so, an incredibly good post about how much the Silicon Valley has changed since when I was in my teens.
Enchantment Awaits
The last gasp of overpriced homes in my area.
Quixey Makes Sense Now
Is a well-funded startup guaranteed to survive? Nope.
Two Blondes, Two Fates
Marissa Mayer and Elizabeth Holmes. What are their similarities and differences, and why did one succeed while the other flopped?
Life After Google
Review of George Gilder’s book, which I found well worth the time.
Palo Alto Problems
Getting kicked off the robotics team causes a local brouhaha
Roll Over and Play Dead
The madness of our age, in which a dog walking app gets huge funding
You Are Real
Are we living in a simulation? No!
Wipeout 94301
My neighborhood’s house prices are getting nuked
The Boom that Busted
Reviewing what has happened since the famous 1997 cover of Wired magazine. A must-read!
LULZ From the SVB Website
The now-destroyed Silicon Valley Bank was full woke before the collapse
Jobsian Reflections
More on my adoration of the late Steve Jobs
Leeward
The fatal stabbing of a Silicon Valley CEO
The Strange Smell of Success
Slope of Hope suddenly gets really, really popular
Letter for the Ages
I received an extraordinary letter from a young trader.
Achieving the Impossible
Where do I find the time?
About “You Are Here”
Bad analogies really bug me.
Slope’s Glorious Return to the Vanguard
As the market begins collapsing
It’s About Time
Raging Bull finally gets their ass nailed to the wall
The Best of Tyler
What posts have I done over the years that grabbed ZH the most?
EZ Disaster Guide
How come the mayhem predicted on ZeroHedge never works out? Read this and find out why!
Know Your Slopers
Survey results yield interesting insights about your fellow inhabitants here on the site
WSB Lunacy
Wall Street Bets and its lunatic participants
Some Pro Photos
Some professional photographs from a tastytrade event that I did
Harmony at Gunpoint
How China uses cameras, AI, and databases for the perfect surveillance state
I Robot Part One
The tale of my robot store and the empire that didn’t happen
I Robot Part Two
The second half of my tale
CES Silliness
We begin the new year with a look at the most ridiculous contraptions
The Last Bus
How self-driving vehicles are going to eliminate millions of jobs.
Uranus Rising
An app which bases financial decisions based on your astrological sign.
Why Crypto Is Better
Bitcoin beats gold, hands down
From TBSP to WSB
Decades have passed, but nothing has changed
The Empty Bus
A clever plan for far more efficient transportation
Don’t Fear the Future: Part One
Part one of a two-part essay about futurism and artificial intelligence
Don’t Fear the Future: Part Two
Part two of a two-part essay about futurism and artificial intelligence
What Will People Do?
As technology displaces humans, what are doing they going to do with themselves?
Finally, It’s Clear
All these years I thought I was a perma-bear. How wrong I was!
Missing the Reversal
What indicators are useful in spotting major reversals?
Trillionaire
A young FOREX goofball trips on his way to becoming earth’s richest man
The Bad News Bears
A follow-up on my Top Tick Tyler post
A Litany of Errors
An examination of the poor chap who shorted KBIO to ill effect
Elliott Wave’s Last Stand
Here I give our friends in Gainesville one last chance to redeem themselves. I’ll mention, as an aside, that their “highest levels’ for the market have been exceeded. Again.
Your Darned Kids!
How the young people in WSB are setting their money ablaze by throwing caution to the wind.
Neutral Position, Neutral Mind
Positioning oneself neutrally with options setups
What a JOKE!
In which I completely lose patience with Dennis Gartman’s nonsense
What’s Your Problem?
Do bears short market from a sense of virtue?
Teller Yourself!
Want to make a lower salary than a bank teller? Be a day trader!
About FACE!
Elliott Wave does a total one-eighty.
Relativity
A very interesting success story about how my method of trading was able to prosper in the face of what seemed like very dire circumstances.
A Tale of Two Fridays
My unfortunate loss in TCO (which went into a free-fall the next month)
Sleepless in Shallow Alto
The market’s collapse was so exciting, I couldn’t even sleep anymore
Just Screw It
How my Nike put options made a huge profit that I managed to avoid.
Slope’s Greatest Long
It was early 2013 that Slope touted Tesla. The rest is history.
Flatten the Funhouse Mirrors
Why it is important to look at charts through the lens of money supply
My Odd Relationship with EW
What’s up with me and the Elliott wave?
Slowly, Then All At Once
One young man is cursed with early success
The Curse of Abundance
Definitely one of the favorite business tales I’ve ever shared.
Torches and Pitchforks
Class warfare, bring it on!
The Air We Breathe
What does it really mean to be rich?
What’s Wrong with Class Warfare?
The title pretty much says it all
What Rich Used To Be
The massive changes that have taken place over the past few decades that have altered the meaning of rich, poor, and middle class.
The Hopeless Population
Musings about the homeless population of my fair city
Admissions Solution
My breakthrough idea about how to solve college admissions for the rich
Nest Egg
Wealth distribution essay, using chickens as my muse.
The Billionaire and the Bums
When I saw a human foot sticking out of the garden shed………
Hot Air
I think this post took more work than any other I did all year.
Liquid Assets
A sweeping metaphor about the rich and poor of Earth
Like Water for Chocolate
Another stab at my watery metaphor
Castles and Cottages
The mansions and estates near me are over-the-top
