The Monday Read

From Nurnberg, Germany

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It’s pretty hot here too 🙂

Here are this week’s links:

  1. Seems legit: six things working women should pretend they can’t do.
  2. Dentist millionaire interview.
  3. I don’t know, dude: eight questions I’ve been pondering.
  4. What is best in life? People retire early for two reasons, and neither of them is money.
  5. My Number, phase two: Japan puts off using My Number system to scrutinize financial assets of elderly people.
  6. Carpe diem: your whole life is borrowed time.
  7. Share buybacks: the scapegoat.
  8. This would be great but seems a long shot: Is U.S. Citizenship-Based Taxation On Its Way Out?
  9. Need to sell my pounds soon: As Brexit day nears, sterling is once again in for a rocky ride.
  10. Stating the obvious on Brexit: A Titanic disaster (video).
  11. This makes sense. I noticed recently that Kuroneko lets you specify when you are normally home… Japan’s Environment Ministry to focus on young consumers as it aims to curb the number of parcels that need to be redelivered​.
  12. A missed opportunity:  the biggest policy mistake of the last decade.
  13. I’m also a no man: my favourite word.
  14. Real estate is still not for me: some thoughts on investing in real estate.
  15. Self-control is mostly helpful, but not always: the art of self-control.
  16. ​Kind of morbid but extremely important (and I haven’t done it either!): what if you died tomorrow?
  17. Even investment strategies change: the half-life of investment strategies.

Anything good in there? Number 16 is on my mind now.

2 Responses

  1. 9. The Google news app has assumed I’m interested in GBP forex. So for the past few months I’ve seen lots news headlines about it. “GBP strengthens”, “GBP crashes over fears of XXX”. Whenever I go check the GBPJPY rate it is normally a daily move of 0.5-1%. I am sure for a national economy this is a big swing and significant. But for the normal person these headlines start feeling like hyperbole.
    11. This really feels like just an eco PR exercise. I wonder how much energy is really spent on redelivering. Also the delivery services already are highly incentivised to limit redelivers. The big consumers of the delivery services (Amazon, Rakuten,..) also has strong financial incentives to push delivery costs low. My instinct is it is unlikely a government programme could make much impact.

    1. Good point about the exchange rate, but while I’ve been here I have seen Sterling between 119 and 249 yen, so there is at least the chance of a major correction.
      Don’t know about energy (less if they start using EV trucks) but redeliveries are a major problem here -hence the efforts like having drop off boxes at convenience stores, etc. I tend to get stuff delivered at work, as there is always someone here to sign for packages…