I, my mom, my grandmother, and Aaron are taking a very long weekend. Everyone else is back at home and the four of us are doing something unusual: We are driving, round-trip, from Kansas City to Denver to Santa Fe and back in a period of only five or six days. Right now, I am going…
DetailsVoting is a big deal. In countries that have lived under brutal dictatorships, people will die for the opportunity to vote, defying militants to take to the street and cast their ballot. I love the act of voting. I’m one of those “have you voted?” people, constantly harping on people on election day to stop…
DetailsAs investors, the better we understand the world, and the forces that drive it, the better the opportunity we have to generate a profit for our families or companies. To that end, if you want to understand humanity politically, economically, socially, culturally, and historically, you need to realize that all humans see the world through…
DetailsThe intrinsic value of a fair bet is one in which the cost of the bet is identical to the expected after-tax, net cash payoff. For example, if you had a lottery ticket that promised a 7% chance to win $100, a fair bet would be $7.00. If you could buy the bet for significantly…
DetailsI have talked to you about ways to you can use trust funds to build wealth, and even talked to you about some of the interesting trust funds we saw in college. I recently encountered a young man who, upon turning 18 this year, found himself with a trust fund. The fund contains between $1,500,000…
DetailsIn Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, Kevin Phillips looks at the biggest Federal income tax payers shortly after the income tax was introduced. Taxpayer Taxes in 1924 Dollars Taxes in 2012 Dollars John D. Rockefeller (oil) $6,278,000 $84,249,292 Henry Ford (autos) $2,609,000 $35,012,170 Edsel Ford (autos) $2,158,000 $28,959,856 Andrew Mellon…
DetailsLast week, I needed to pick up a service ticket item from the Apple store, so I walked over a few blocks to stop by Hall’s at the Country Club Plaza during the wait. They were having a men’s clothing liquidation sale to get rid of the old merchandise and bring in the new season.…
DetailsSome friends, the husband, and I went out to dinner tonight at a place in Smithville, Missouri, near Kansas City, that was rated very highly by Zagat (29 out of 30). The entire experience typically takes 2-3 hours and it was well worth it. The restaurant is run by a husband-and-wife team, who converted the old…
DetailsIn the post this morning about Brands and Brand Equity, I mentioned the Chick-fil-A scandal in passing; particularly how it has experienced a 50% drop in brand perception over the past few weeks as the scandal unfolds. One of the questions was too expansion to deal with in the comments thread so I put it…
DetailsAs some of you probably surmised from the Neiman Marcus and Community Coffee Company posts, I have been studying brands and brand equity for the past few weeks. It is a fascinating concept that exists because of the interplay between basic economics and human psychology. Most of the time, brand equity changes slowly. More rarely,…
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