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The Housing Crisis Isn’t All Bad …

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Real Estate Home Ownership Housing Crisis

As Warren Buffett pointed out in this year's letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, for every house that falls in value and pushes one family into bankruptcy, another American family benefits from the lower prices as new households are created due to the younger generation graduating from college, settling down, and moving out of their parents' houses. So, the 50 year old that lost all of their home equity is in trouble, but the 22 year old getting married now has much more affordable … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Making Money, Real Estate Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Would You Please Stop Blaming the Banks?

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Blaming the Banks for the Banking Crisis

Everyone in the media is blaming the recession on the fact banks were willing to make bad loans.  Yes, they were.  And most of the stockholders of those institutions (re: the owners) have been wiped out, or effectively wiped out so the term "bail out" isn't appropriate except for the idiots in the executive suite that caused the problems.  Yet, it seems they are overlooking one basic, simple fact: No one made homeowners borrow money to buy an asset that was overvalued and that they could not … [Read more...]

Filed Under: My Life, Philosophy Tagged With: , , ,

We Might Setup a Recording Studio In the Office

March 9, 2010 By 1 Comment
Apple Logic Studio

Aaron and I have been talking about setting up a recording studio in the office for some time. We have top-of-the-line Power Mac systems with dual 30" HD monitors, Apple Logic Studio or Pro (whichever was the best one), Soundtrack, huge, fully-weighted 88 key brand name synthesizers, professional quality microphones, and a lot of other stuff we picked up from our time paying our way through university with music scholarships. The thing is, I have absolutely no idea how the logistics work for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , , , ,

Our Value Investing Research Process for Stocks

March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Analyzing Sonic Restaurant Investment Reports Regarding Share Buy Backs

A week or two ago, I wrote an article called Understanding Stock Repurchase Plans for About.com, a division of The New York Times, which discussed Sonic Restaurant and the massive stock buy back program that had taken place over the past few years. In it, I walked the readers through a lot of the math and explained that I had purchased a couple hundred shares to watch and monitor the stock through one of my companies, Mount Olympus Awards, LLC.  (I've since increased it to about 500 shares … [Read more...]

Filed Under: My Businesses, Value Investing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

101 Things Every Investor Should Know About Stock and the Stock Market

March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Wendy's Stock Certificate Dave Thomas

A Three Minute Guide to Understanding Stocks Head over to the Investing for Beginners site at About.com, a division of The New York Times, to see my newest special.  It started because last week, I sat down to create an updated version of The Beginner's Corner, which answered basic questions such as "what is the ask price and bid price of a stock?" and "what does a market maker do?". As I kept writing answers to the questions I'd received from readers over the years, what started as a brief … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: , , ,

The Kennon Retirement Insurance Plan

March 8, 2010 By 3 Comments
Retirement Insurance Plan

One of the Things That Helped Me ... From time to time, you may come across reference to my "stupidity" insurance or my "reserve" fund.  I've had a bunch of readers write me over the years and ask about various comments I've made so I thought it might be useful to explain it.  My parents, siblings, and Aunt Donna have always known about my investing but virtually no one else did when I was a child (by the time I got into high school, though, it was all I talked about so hiding it was no … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Making Money Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 5 Levels of Building Wealth

March 2, 2010 By 5 Comments
Scrooge McDuck Carl Barks Money Bin

Early in life, I developed a theory that there were five levels of building wealth that most self-made men (and women) go through to reach financial independence.  It was started by my love for Carl Barks Scrooge McDuck comics.  When I started reading the Federal Reserve reports of consumer wealth, empirical studies, and other sources of data, and discovered that 90% of those in the United States who are millionaires made the money on their own - that is, they did not inherit it - I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Making Money Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Business Should Be Fun … If It’s Not, You’re Doing Something Wrong

March 2, 2010 By 4 Comments
Monopoly collectibles in my office

When I talk about the idea of tap dancing to work, in the words of Warren Buffett, I'm not kidding or making a joke.  You should wake up every morning and jump out of bed because you can't wait to spend your time focusing on something that makes every part of you - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually - satisfied.  This is going to be different for everyone. Building a financial net worth that allows you to live any way you wish and enjoying your life are not mutually … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Making Money, My Businesses, My Life Tagged With: , , , ,

Snowstorm Hit During Our First Price War Making It Magical

March 2, 2010 By 1 Comment
View from the Balcony During Snow Storm

Remember the industry price war we decided to start?  As we were rolling out the wholesale business site and "flipping the switch" so to speak, a beautiful, huge snow storm hit and the images were great so I thought I'd post some of them here.     … [Read more...]

Filed Under: My Businesses, My Life Tagged With: , ,
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