In 2005, Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech at Stanford University after surviving his first fight with pancreatic cancer. There were four lessons that really spoke to me in his message. These are: Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to make the big choices in life because…
Aaron and I went to high school with Kyle Kurz, who penned two new verbs today. They are awesome because they work so well. Plus, it isn’t often a verb (or two!) can be added to the English language to fill a previously unmet need. But these are situations we all know and now can…
The odds are good you won’t read this entire post. The reason? It has to do with confirmation bias. If you think what I am going to say conflicts with your belief system – whether you are a scientist or a Christian – you won’t finish it to avoid cognitive dissonance even though you aren’t…
I love population statistics and studying them. I would have been content (provided I was financially independent) being a sociologist. Back in September, I shared with you a few surprising facts about the population of the United States. Today, though, I was thinking about population and its implications for our understanding of history and economics.…
Tell me what you think of the following statement: “American manufacturing has been destroyed over the past 20 years? Going back further, it’s nothing like it was in 1960. Everything is made in China now.” [mainbodyad]If you agreed with the statement, congratulations! You failed. Miserably. Start thinking for yourself and stop watching the news commentators…
I love lemon cake, as you learned in the post about Duncan Hines trying to break my heart when we stopped eating it because of the trans fats. I’m working from the home office tonight, responding to all of your comments and submissions, and Aaron comes in to tell me he is making lemon cream…
For those of you who prefer visual data, watch this BBC video, which is up to 3,757,003 views after going viral on the net a few days ago and has been lighting up the economic blogs. In 4:48 seconds, you will see 200 years of human economic and health records, organized by country. I…
This upcoming week is going to be busy. I have to finalize the accounting approval for last year before sending off all of the records to the firm that prepares our taxes, I have to drop off the finalized terms contract for the attorneys that are helping me explore launching my own financial vehicle, I…
Years ago, I vaguely remember hearing someone comment that it was interesting how differently we measure wealth today compared to British society at the end of the 19th century. This made me realize that most people don’t even know there is a difference; that there are primarily two ways you can think about measuring your wealth and which you choose for your own household will influence how you behave, the capital structure you employ, and even how you think about risk.
I started thinking about people who lose everything, or what Charlie Munger calls returning “to Go”, as in the Monopoly board. Once you are rich, your primary motivation shouldn’t be to get richer, it should be to avoid wipeout risk, or returning to go. But as a training exercise, I decided to contemplate what I would do if I woke up tomorrow and the last ten years had been a dream. What would my first course of action be to rebuild until I got my financial affairs in order?