The Monday Read

Mountain climbing edition

Got dragged off early this morning by my wife to climb Kinkasan (near Ishinomaki in Miyagi) with her mountain climbing group today. At only 444.9 metres it was a quick climb, but pretty steep most of the way up, and the descent was pretty brutal on boulders and tree trunks.

At least the weather and scenery made up for the early start and the leeches lurking in wait (I avoided them somehow with my bare legs while one of the group decked out in gaiters and hiking trousers found a couple inside her sock).

Can recommend getting out in nature for a day or so -really helps put things into perspective.

Merch

Merch store. It’s a bit expensive so I don’t expect anyone to buy anything but I kind of liked the concept.

Supporter memberships

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The Forum

The Forum is doing well (15,525 posts to date). Here are the latest active threads:

Charity: water

I’ve been supporting charity: water since 2014 because I can’t think of anything more important than having clean, safe drinking water. It would be great if you could join me.

This week’s random music

I’ve been listening to a lot of UK grime music recently, and JME’s How Much really sums up the most important thing in personal finance in my opinion. Also has one of my favourite opening lines ever.

This week’s books

Finished Billy Summers, by Stephen King and enjoyed it very much. Not a perfect book, but definitely an enjoyable read.

This week’s links

  1. Not much to argue with here: Winning With Benjamin Franklin’s Virtues
  2. Still don’t understand this: Double entry Bookkeeping explained in 10 minutes
  3. I’m not a crypto guy, but the thinking here was interesting: Thoughts on Risk, Selling, and Your Base Case
  4. Totally worth it, right? Right? (paywall, but the first paragraph is enough) The Tokyo Olympics’ Staggering Price Tag and Where It Stands in History
  5. Been thinking about what an ideal school might look like: The modern curriculum
  6. This was good: CWS Market Review – September 8, 2021
  7. I could probably do this if I were more organised: What Would Happen If We Slowed Down?
  8. Not to worry: Stocks are going to crash
  9. This seems like it might be a big deal: Contagion fear as China property giant Evergrande struggles to repay $300bn debt
  10. We did this in the end, but I didn’t get much out of it: Rituals
  11. Really interesting (mobile finance in Africa): M-Pesa and the African Fintech Revolution
  12. I need to walk more: On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking

What do you think? Anything good in there?

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5 Responses

  2. #6 – I feel Eddy misses the point a little here. Value indexes are defined by their low PE ratios. The fact that growth (mainly tech) has blown these metrics out of the water does not undermine the value strategy and there will inevitably come another rotations where growth falls (spectacularly) out of favor and value does better on a relative basis. Value is a long term strategy and re-defining value now to chase yield would be the worst thing these funds could do.

    #8 Andrew Hallam’s millionaire teacher got me on the road to index investing. Unfortunately he seems to be getting more and more click-baity with his articles which takes away from his core messaging. I guess if you are paid to write you quickly run out of material if all you are saying is buy the market and forget it.

    #11 I wish there was an easy way to invest in this space. I am also not into crypto as I currently see no real world use cases for it. But if there is one area where crypto could be a real game changer is in providing cheap stable de-centralized financing and banking services for citizens of developing nations who do not have access to stable currencies or traditional financing. But let’s face it, the current crop of cryptos are not it. When a company does start to offer such products I will invest in it in a heartbeat. but until then crypto seems like a pointless and wasteful enterprise to me.

    1. #11 seemed like “yeah, this is one of the supposed reasons for crypto, and here it goes on its own, organically, without needing crypto to do that.”

  3. I second you on the charity:water point. I’ve had them as a core part of my monthly giving for a few years now. Great cause, very well run organisation.

  4. #12 got me thinking of it, and I tried to find the source of a quote I once heard, “If you want to see the most in the shortest distance, walk.” That was a dead-end, but I came across this: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30285283/longest-walkable-distance-earth/ (14,000 miles/22,000km)

    Somewhat similar would be cycling (and Steve is still in Japan, occasionally posting his rides). Web version: http://www.turnrightforjapan.com (esp. the Photos section), and book: https://www.amazon.co.jp/Turn-Right-Japan-Cycling-Orient/dp/1916248101