Margaret Thatcher and the British Coal Miners’ Strike
Margaret Thatcher has died. She was one of the most influential figures of the past century, and one of the most powerful women in history.
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Chicken Tikka Masala II – Increasing the Spiciness
Earlier this week, my grandma came down for chicken tikka masala. Tonight, it was take two, only this time, the chile seeds were partially retained in the sauce to increase the spiciness to the point it burned, but was enjoyable. It was delicious. This is definitely a permanent recipe we’ll be making several times a year.…
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The Economic Tragedy of Ed Toman and the McDonald’s Fortune That Could Have Been
The biggest mistakes are often not seizing the huge opportunities that are right in front of you. One of my least favorite stories of this economic tragedy involve a man named Ed Toman, who lived in Southern California back in the 1940s and 1950s and played an important role in the early days of the McDonald’s restaurant empire.
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Mail Bag: Return Assumptions in Your About.com Articles
All morning long, I’ve been getting letters in the inbox about my “latest” article at Investing for Beginners. I have no idea what they are talking about because the article in question, which isn’t even an article, it is a “quick tip” template that was meant as a side bar to another piece, was published years ago and has not been featured anywhere on either of sites.
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Chicken Tikka Masala with Grandma Ruby
This afternoon was one of the most pleasant I’ve ever had in my life. I worked from my home study, and my grandma Ruby came down for dinner (Aaron had invited her and decided that he was going to take over the kitchen to make Indian food).
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If You Are Sitting on a Huge Pile of Cash, There Is Only One Place to Park It (and It Is Not In a Bank)
For the past day, I’ve been thinking about a 65 year old man named John Demetriou. He was from Cyprus, but moved to Australia, where he spent 35 years working “days, nights and weekends in Sydney markets selling jewellery and imitation jewellery” according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Wanting to be in his home country, and…
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The Cost of Milk for My Household Is Negative
My family gets paid to drink milk because we take advantage of a dairy rebate program.
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A Quick Cash Flow Statement Lesson – A Look at How McDonald’s Real Payout Ratio Is 110%, Not 54% As First Appears
McDonald’s is one of those businesses that I love. The last time we talked about it was when I wrote the 25 Year Investment Case Study of McDonald’s, and showed how you could have turned $100,000 into anywhere between $1,839,033 and $5,547,089 depending on how you handled dividend reinvestment and the Chipotle split-off back in 2006, and the sorely lacking media coverage of McDonald’s results in February. No matter which way you look at it, despite periods of overvaluation and undervaluation, alternating with the underlying performance and the emotional moods of shareholders, McDonald’s has been a fantastic company. It makes its employees and shareholders a lot of money. It gives society something it wants, whether that be a plain salad with side of fresh fruit and a non-sweetened iced tea or a double cheeseburger with french fries and a Coca-Cola.
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Two Secrets to Living a Happy Life
One of the most important lessons I learned very early in life came from a series of psychology studies that I read for entertainment. It talked about how the big troubles we face – the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the foreclosure of a home – are often overcome because our natural defense systems activate, causing our behavior to moderate with time so that we accept what has happened, rebuild, and put it behind us. The things that cause unhappiness that is both severe and chronic are not these major shocks; they are the small irritations that build up and wear away at you like Chinese water torture.
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A Look at Some Major Stocks During the Bottom of the 1933 Stock Market Crash
We’ve talked about the 1929 period a lot lately, but what you need to remember is that it was a walk in the park compared to 1933. It wasn’t until then that everyone had gone broke, given up hope, and sworn off stocks for life, leaving great businesses trading at double-digit dividend yields and a…
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