The Monday Read

My life remains interesting, so just the bare bones today (although we have 30 links for you -not too shabby!).

Here are this week’s links

  1. Really interesting article about illegal drugs and Japan: Japan, the place with the strangest drug debate in the world
  2. This seems like a promising approach: The People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day
  3. Some links from Collaborative Fund: What we’re reading
  4. The opposite of what Mr. Money Mustache advises (personally, I am more inclined to do this): Lighten the Load
  5. I live on a main road -can’t wait for electric vehicles to become the norm… Air pollution deaths are double previous estimates, finds research
  6. Parents need to think about this very carefully: Brain expert warns parents of horrors that await juvenile smartphone users
  7. Recessions: It’s Been a While
  8. Very interesting, not sure how actionable it is. Fiat world
  9. From Chaos to Concept -thoughts on decision making.
  10. Does your job actually involve doing work? In praise of work
  11. How about that Save 50% Retire Early thing?
  12. How to think about your career: Stupid Advice: “You’ll Never Be Rich Working for Somebody Else”
  13. Good question: will my son thrive in the age of AI?
  14. 966 days in detention: Hostage justice: Nobumasa Yokoo
  15. Pretty impressive. Tokyo Cheapo: Meet the Kiwi whose blog went big in Japan
  16. This is pretty scary. What is your dentist putting in your mouth? The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth
  17. Scarcity creates value: the joke should be the outlier
  18. The book A Man for All Markets is excellent: first mover alpha
  19. Really good stuff: edges that won’t go away
  20. This is so true… Warren Buffett’s “20 Slot” Rule: How to Simplify Your Life and Maximize Your Results
  21. Counterintuitive competitive advantages
  22. There will soon be a whole community of ultra low cost 3D printed homes
  23. How to be successful investing: Compounding Boredom is Simple, but Not Easy
  24. Long periods of boredom punctuated by intense excitement? Nothing happens then everything happens
  25. 5 million seems fairly reasonable for this: Disaster-prevention house to come with PV system, battery, fuel cell
  26. The value of university? How I got here
  27. Not as good going forward? The Gordon Equation: how to calculate expected returns for equities
  28. I’d spend more time with family and friends: What to Do with Your Time in Early Retirement
  29. myIndex is an interesting site with information about investing, valuations of indexes, etc.
  30. Loaded with unnecessary profanity, but worth a read: “WHO THE FUCK AM I?”: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO PERSONAL VALUES

What do you think? Anything good in there?

2 Responses

  1. Good reading, Ben! Thanks.

    First, my compliments for putting #7 and #8 right there next to each other. Altho some countries dropped it much earlier (UK), and the US later (’71), I’d offer that the move from the gold standard to fiat may be connected to the lack of recessions since the early ’80s (and their frequency before that). Once certain countries and their national banks got used to managing their economies/currencies/policies without gold, things smoothed out. 2009 was a blip when fiat, the value everything is imagined to have, almost got out of control. (Or the crisis in EM markets/currencies 10 years earlier.)

    I can’t say where I can go with this, what future effect it may have, but if it’s not true, I’m all ears–I’d like to hear/see arguments and data that say this is wrong.

    Three other bits: One article pointed out that credit card debt is over $800 billion; another said that student loan debt is higher than that. That makes me think back to an article here on RJ (six months back?) that described the change in the US from a place without debt, to (thru the ’50s and into the present) a place where debt was the norm–where it was perfectly acceptable and commonplace. And the trend is on steroids with college debt, which cannot be discharged thru bankruptcy. A third article touches on how universities got so expensive, and how they serve to maintain economic moats and inequality (and some ways that that might be corrected).

    And a final minor comment: one article mentioned that “doing nothing is a powerful strategy”. This rang some bells and triggered some memories.

  2. #23 explains my investment system, and I think it’s successful.

    As for #16, I go to a dentist certified in the US. She does everything American-style, so she completes work quickly. I cannot use insurance for the fees, but I think it’s worth it.