It’s a fairly consistent thing that I get messages asking about the morality or ethics of investing in a certain type of company. Right now, there is a mail bag response I’m working on that deals with this topic. We’ve also talked about the fact that the Bri Institute thinks Jesus hates my portfolio. Though,…
DetailsI once read somewhere that you should measure the success of your day by the seeds you plant for a better future. Over time, you keep planting, your life radically changes for the better. I came across a perfect illustration of that concept through a bit of serendipity.
DetailsAs we approach my 30th birthday, I thought about taking a look at what has happened to the economy of the United States in the three decades I’ve been alive to gain a sense of perspective about where we have been. This is the time period during which I went from childhood to adulthood, and…
DetailsI went to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City to see the new Rodin exhibit with Aaron and Jimmy. You already know Aaron, but Jimmy is a mutual friend from college. I had a fantastic time, especially in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century furniture exhibits, for reasons that will be no…
DetailsMy family is having a houseguest fly in from Houston this weekend, but since the house is still under renovation, we had to improvise. An extra bed was put in the formerly empty guest room, which had been vacated as part of the redesign, and we spent all day yesterday running around Overland Park looking…
DetailsThe news wires are afire this morning because Alistair Barr of Reatuers is reporting that Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriters on the Facebook IPO, all cut earnings forecasts for social network giant during the IPO roadshow. Even worse, the banks then allegedly passed this information on to only a handful…
DetailsImagine you have a friend. You do everything for him. You don’t feel like he’s particularly responsible, but you still help him pay off his credit card debt, drive him to work, help him study, and take him to the free clinic when he shows up on your doorstep after a night of binge drinking.…
DetailsThe velocity of money is one of the most important economic concepts you can ever learn. It isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t fully capture vital influences on the way a nation’s money supply behaves as driven by behavioral economic considerations such as mass panic, fear, overoptimism, et cetra, but it does have very important implications…
DetailsIn a couple of weeks, we will see the three year anniversary of the end of the Great Recession, which was the worst economic crisis to hit the United States since the 1930’s and ran from December of 2007 through June of 2009. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the definition of the…
DetailsWhen people talk about “borrowing money”, it isn’t entirely accurate. What is really happening is renting someone else’s property. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about credit card debt or student loan debt. Imagine I own a $100,000 lake cabin. You want to take your family on a vacation this summer, so you approach me and…
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