The Monday Read

Typhoon Haishen edition

Hope everyone is safe out there. Looks like it might get hairy in Kyushu tomorrow!

This week’s links

  1. This makes a lot of sense to me: Being Fascinated
  2. Coincidentally, I started buying these in my wife’s account earlier in the year: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway buys stakes in Japan’s five leading trading companies
  3. Enjoyed this old Paul Graham post. Something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to: Life is Short
  4. Head down, ingnore the noise, stick to the plan: My Strategy For Dealing With FOMO
  5. I think the Olympics should be distributed, with different cities in different countries hosting certain events. Don’t see how it makes sense to host it otherwise: Tokyo Olympics will be most costly Summer Games, Oxford study shows
  6. This seems relatively easy to slip into: A Prescription for Loneliness: Overcoming the Isolation of Japan’s Middle-Aged Men
  7. The answer always seems to be: a bit more than I have… How much money is enough?
  8. A possible answer to the money question: A basic formula for contentness
  9. Harsh words about share valuations: How dare you, sir!
  10. I’d love to see society provide everyone with the same starting advantages, then collect all the wealth back in when people die: Why Do Poor People Stay Poor

What do you think? Anything good in there? I found #1, #3, and #8 thought-provoking.

This week’s books

False Alarm, by Bjorn Lomborg. This was recommended by someone on the blog last week, so I picked it up to educate myself… The author states that climate change is real and damaging, but not the existential threat others make it out to be. He advocates focusing on cost-effective policies. Not sure so far, will keep reading.

Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven. Old-school SF. Looking forward to getting into this.

Confessions of a Yakuza, by Junichi Saga. The sequel to Memories of Silk and Straw (well, the next book he wrote).

A pretty good mix this week, if I say so myself 🙂

7 Responses

    1. Ooooh, I did not like that 🙂

      I felt a lot of that was quite disingenuous.

      Of course I don’t favour a 100% inheritance tax. But I think having a reasonable tax-free threshhold (5000万 or so per inheritor?) and then taking the rest, provided the funds were used to provide universal education and a funded investment account for every child, could be good for society.

      Sadly I am about as far from the reigns of power as it is possible to be, so I think the rich families of Japan are safe for now.

      We’d have to rethink a lot of things,

      1. Not sure how you can get Friedman as beIng insincere. Maybe it was the fact that he was of a different generation (several previous to yours and mine, in fact) and the speaking style doesn’t appeal. One thing Friedman certainly was, was sincere.

    1. With respect, the article you have linked to does not debunk him ‘over and over again.’ Try tackling the arguments he makes in the book we are actually talking about, not just the beginning of the book for free online. The article you have linked to IS very useful for the comments section, 205 comments, with lots of added responses from the article author, all of which does constitute a serious discussion about the issues but, to reiterate, to conclude that he has been debunked does not stand up to close examination. (Finally, you say that his argumentation “seems” quite weak, which suggests that you are merely proceeding on an impressionistic basis – not recommended.)

  4. I read Lucifer’s Hammer ages ago. But the one thing that happened not too long afterwards is I spent a year in china, where everyone was dependent on shortwave for news of the world (via BBC, Radio Moscow, and VOA). Which reminded me of what happened in the book.

    (Moscow sometimes had good jazz, and “Moscow Mailbag” was a hoot!)