Archive - Rational Beard

September 2025

Structured Notes from VTB: How to Lose 14 Million Rubles on "Super-Reliable Bonds" in Just a Week

Imagine: you’re looking for a place to park your money for a week, and a bond selection service suggests – «grab this paper from the issuer with the…

Sep 25 •

Pavel Komarovskiy

Citi's Structures: VEB's Pension Money, NES, and Sergey Guriev

A micro-scandal erupted on Russian Twitter the other day: someone dug up an old story from eleven years ago about Russian pension funds, VEB, the World…

Sep 24 •

Pavel Komarovskiy

Trump's $2 Billion Crypto Bribe from the UAE That No One's Talking About

Imagine: one wealthy guy from the UAE desperately needs cutting-edge Nvidia chips for AI, and the family of the president of the country controlling…

Sep 23 •

Pavel Komarovskiy

ICN Holding, Part 4: The сonsultant’s response

Following my first article about the ICN Holding pyramid, I received an argued (well, sort of…) response addressing the red flags I highlighted.

Sep 22 •

Pavel Komarovskiy

August 2025

July 2025

Which assets Interactive Brokers considers «US-situs»

for U.S. inheritance tax purposes

Jul 30 •

Pavel Komarovskiy

The Big Short and the Fine Slicing of Mortgage Bonds

I plan to rewatch «The Big Short» with my paid subscribers next week, and it seems to me that the film’s frothy, bathtub-style explanations don’t fully…

Jul 27 •

Pavel Komarovskiy

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