I am pleased to say that I’ve been asked to write another post for the CFA Institute’s Inside Investing blog. The idea for this one was to consider what we believe but can’t prove in investing. I like these posts because they move away from the day-to-day concerns about what to buy or sell and into the underlying assumptions that help determine the decisions we make.

Hope you enjoy reading it nearly as much as I did writing it.

One of the problems with what I do is keeping everything current. The gap between when I prepare a presentation and when I give it can sometimes lead to awkward results.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about alternative investments over the past couple of weeks, from a number of different perspectives. But before I proceed any further, I want to make clear that the content of this article does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any investment of any type.

Last week, I spoke with an institutional private equity manager, a hedge fund manager, and a major Wall Street financial institution about how they can better access retail investors to sell alternative products. This kind of interest isn’t particularly new; what is new is the recognition that retail investors can be the preferred capital source instead of an afterthought. As more and more companies start to realize this, we can expect to see the current group of offerings double and triple in size, with new players moving into the market and providing strategies and products that simply aren’t available right now.

One of my major themes last year was the return of political economy. This is the discipline that Smith and Ricardo, among others, invented, and it was called that because they understood very clearly the relationship between politics and what we now call economics. The notion of considering them independently would have seemed nonsensical.

After I wrote yesterday’s post, I was discussing the results with a colleague who was much more downbeat than I had been. “Only 1.7 percent!” he pointed out, maintaining that this is quite a low growth rate, well below those in previous recoveries, and nothing to get excited about.

You know what? In absolute terms, he’s right. The 1.7-percent growth rate is disappointing based on history, is not a level that will make us all rich, and certainly needs to increase. But to me, that’s not the point.

Wow. While I like to think I get things right more often than not, I rarely get positive feedback this quickly. The economic numbers this morning were very interesting. Expectations for economic growth in the second quarter were substantially wrong, but for all the right reasons, which I pointed out yesterday.

We can expect the announcement of GDP growth for the second quarter to be lousy—around 1 percent or so if we’re lucky, less than that if we’re not. Why is this, and what does it say about the rest of the year?

The short answer is that we got what we asked for at the start of the year. If you remember, back then we had the fiscal cliff and a record, uncontrollable deficit. Some wanted higher taxes, others wanted reduced spending; everyone wanted a lower deficit.

The other day, a Commonwealth colleague of mine who works outside of the investment groups asked about a point I had made a couple of years ago—that Washington, DC, had become the financial capital of the United States, in addition to the governmental capital. “Is that still the case, post-crisis?” he wanted to know.

I believe it is, and for reasons that extend beyond those that obtained in the crisis. While DC has largely exited the banking system and the auto industry, the role of the government in the economy has only grown. Part of this is politically driven, and therefore subject to debate, but part is structural, reflecting a growing change in how the economy works.

Today is Nora’s and my 10th anniversary. We got married on July 26, 2003. It was a great wedding. To celebrate, last night we went out to No. 9 Park—a very nice restaurant in Boston—and tried the tasting menu, which I highly recommend. We also went to Tiffany’s, despite my protests that I had already bought her a ring. You can imagine how effective the protests were, and, well, she’s earned it. I can honestly say that I love her even more now than when I married her. Thanks for 10 great years, sweetheart, and I look forward to many more.

Part of our conversation last night was about where we were 10 years ago, and how much has changed. It occurred to me as we spoke that this was a conversation we rarely have—one that explicitly looks at longer periods of time, rather than having an incessant focus on the now. Looking over a decade, events that seemed so important at one time become less so, while events that may have seemed insignificant turn out to be major.

Short answer: no. Detroit is an exceptional situation, which was telegraphed well in advance, and investors and portfolio managers had lots of time to relocate their money if they were paying attention. Retirees, of course, may not be so lucky.