My friend
, aka The Intellectual Investor here on Substack, has been nudging me for a while to start a Substack, especially since I write so often anyway as preparation for my radio show on KOA in Denver. Some of my other friends and Substack-ers include and and , all of whom are repeat guests on my radio show. (Clearly I’m interested in energy policy!)I’ll note here: please follow me on X/Twitter at @Rossputin (and, no, it’s not for Vladimir Putin. I’ve been Rossputin online, at the suggestion of a friend, since the mid-1990s. It’s a play on words about this guy: Grigori Rasputin - Wikipedia)
A bit about me: I’m the son of two US Navy officers, both physicians in the Medical Corps. Mom is a retired rear admiral; dad is a retired captain. Moved around a lot which created a love of travel so I’ve been to over 60 countries and all but 2 states. (Alaska and Oregon, if you’re wondering.)
I studied foreign policy and economics at Columbia University quite a few years ago…and it was almost as bad then as it has famously become. (I’ve been pleading with my dad for at least 25 years to stop donating money to Columbia which is his alma mater as well; within the last few years, he came to agree with me. I completed college in 3 1/2 years (didn’t drop out…actually graduated) and moved to Chicago to become a trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. At the time, I was the youngest trader on the floor. Being a pit trader was the greatest job in the world (at least if you’re good at it) and very few people will ever have that opportunity again as almost all trading is now online.
I moved to Amsterdam for a little while in the mid-1990s and traded the German equity options market for about 18 months, then moved back to the US and started a trading firm with some partners. Made some money, had a good time for several years, but having traded an all-electronic market I knew the pits were doomed. I couldn’t convince my partners of that fact so I left the firm, taking most of my money out with me, and moved to Australia chasing a girl. (The firm was out of business 18 months later so that decision not only got me a great wife but also saved me financially.)
Kristen and I moved to Colorado where we live now with our two kids and our English bulldog, Agnes. She likes eating dinner with us but the drool can get rather gross when she’s around other people eating.
I started blogging which got me to be invited to be a guest on local radio stations through which I found a love for radio and was able to switch careers from trading to broadcasting and consider myself very fortunate to have had two great careers, the second still in process. I’m grateful every day to have what I think is the best talk show job in Colorado, maybe in all of the Rocky Mountain Region, on a heritage 50,000 watt radio station with a three-letter call sign: KOA. I talk about current events, politics, markets, international issues, science (a lot!), and I think I have some of the best interview guests of any radio host, especially local host, in the country, from authors to senators to scientists to economists to the occasional rock star.
Philosophically, I’m basically an Objectivist…similar to but not quite the same as libertarian, and also similar to “classical liberal.” But it’s safe to call me economically conservative and socially liberal. Politically, my highest values are individual liberty and support for the American Constitution…which is emphatically NOT a “living document.” And, without getting too sappy, I really do think about policy in terms of “will it make my children’s lives better” (but even then I’d only be OK with a policy if it’s constitutional and pro-individual liberty.) I’m a consistent opponent of large, intrusive, expensive government.
I’m not a member of a political party and I find that to be quite liberating as far as having the ability to praise or criticize anyone without feeling like I’m doing so out of loyalty to “my team.” That said, I’ve voted for a lot of Republicans and only for one Democrat (and that was a local, not federal, election.) I usually vote Libertarian for president even though I’m generally not with them on foreign policy. And, probably like most Americans, I find today’s political environment to be disappointingly and destructively tribal.
I enjoy travel, dark chocolate, good bourbon, good books, snowboarding, and listening to music on high-end audio gear. I’m president of the Bad Analogy Club and I take my role quite seriously.
I hope to create a little Substack home for principled discussion of politics, economics, international relations, etc., and mix in occasional less serious but maybe more important stuff, such as about family and fun. Some posts will be primarily text, some may be videos, some will include posts on X that we used to call “tweets”. I’ll experiment while looking for a format or balance of formats that suits me and you. I hope you’ll join me in this journey and consider telling your friends. Please try to keep comments civil even if you disagree strongly. I want this place to be about ideas, not insults and not tribes.
Please do check out my radio show and/or its podcast. (The podcast is nice because it has far fewer commercials and you can listen at increased speed. Also, almost every interview I do — and I really do get some tremendous guests — gets posted as a standalone podcast. You can subscribe to the Ross Kaminsky Show podcast on any podcast app and you can find out more about the show at https://koacolorado.iheart.com/featured/ross-kaminsky/
Ross, your posts here will be a welcome adjunct to your radio show and podcast.