The What:

In The Janus Observer, I will post articles, graphics, or trends that I perceive to be key trends in the world at-large, but may have been missed in the flurry of content bombarding us daily.  

I will generally avoid topics that are across the front page of every paper and are covered in nightly news programs. You will find that real estate articles/commentary may come up more often than they would otherwise – real estate is an important asset class and serves as a meaningful indicator of trends; and it’s what I do.

My commentary is not meant to be comprehensive and I would encourage you to click the links to read the full articles if you’re interested.

The Why:

I started this site/blog for two primary reasons, 1) to distribute meaningful information more effectively, and 2) to clarify-expand my thoughts on what I read.

Often after reading a good article one of my first thoughts is wow, I need to share this information, and generally the immediate people that come to mind tend to be those close by or whom I am in frequent contact – clearly this limits distribution.

In regard to the second point, I often found myself with contextual knowledge of trends; however, I didn’t find that my thoughts were well organized or that I could recall too many statistics in support of my thoughts.  At least for me, going through the exercise of reading with a purpose and then further engaging with the articles is a great way of adding clarity to thinking.

The Who:

I was a co-founder of a boutique Hawaii and Phoenix based commercial real estate development company. I worked for a public REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) and now I work at the largest land trust in Hawaii. A more specific bio can be found on LinkedIn. Essentially, my background is in finance and I have a keen interest in world events and economics.