The Monday Read

Lots of links this week

Thank you for all the comments, emails, and messages. They were a source of great comfort these last couple of weeks.

Here are this week’s links:
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  1. Reading from Collaborative Fund: What we’re reading
  2. Some really interesting visual data: Trends and time lapses
  3. We need more people like this in Japan: Successful Japanese communications entrepreneur sets sights on renewable energy race
  4. Next month! Waymo to Start First Driverless Car Service Next Month
  5. Some good points: How to Retire Happy with Lots of Money
  6. This might be where my minimalism comes from: Disconnecting From The US Marketing Machine
  7. What is normal? Insensitivity To Base Rates: An Introduction
  8. ​The nightmare scenario might not be that bad: What If You Retire At a Stock Market Peak?
  9. So Japan… System error: Japan cybersecurity minister admits he has never used a computer
  10. Science fiction is happening all around us: The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us
  11. Short economic history of the US since WW2: How this all happened
  12. Lots of detail: The Real Truth About How to Work Smarter, not Harder
  13. I thought this was the point of buying index funds: Existential threat looms for 31% of the S&P 500
  14. Some good points: How Japan can cope with the 100 year life society
  15. Not sure I agree with the conclusion here: America: Where Retirees Are Tricked Into Regretting a Busted Savings System
  16. Great, but how many people are going to get the time off? Japan Government Announces 10-Day Golden Week Holiday for 2019
  17. Seems like a bad thing: Japan Airlines pilots ‘failed breathalyser tests 19 times’
  18. This rings very true: Why Everyone Should Have Their Own Business (and How to Guarantee Success)
  19. It gets worse: Policies of China, Russia and Canada threaten 5C climate change, study finds
  20. The comments are good on this one: Navigating the #BrexitShambles
  21. More reading from Collaborative Fund: What we’re reading
  22. Basically ‘work smarter, not harder’ but with a slightly bitch tone: No more struggle porn
  23. This seems very important: The digital divide is being flipped

What do you think? Anything good in there? #5, #12, and #18 were good for me.

And here are some books I finished/bought/started reading:

  • Past Tense (Lee Child’s new Reacher book). The latest Reacher is always a guilty pleasure. I thought the first half a dozen were excellent, but they have become a bit formulaic recently. Still a fun, light read though, perfect for a long journey. Nowhere near as good as…
  • Career of Evil (J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith). Really excellent. The best one so far. They are getting longer too (much like the Harry Potter series did). This one is over 500 pages, and the next is 650! I bought book 4 about six seconds after finishing this one 😉
  • Columbus Day (Craig Alanson) was recommended by someone on Facebook. It was only 99 cents so I gave it a shot. Not great so far. Similar but far better are Old Man’s War, The Forever War, or of course Starship Troopers.

5 Responses

  1. I like 5, 8, and 11, but overall this is a particularly meaty, well-curated reading list–thanks!.
    A couple things that might have been added to #11 might be the change in US pensions, from defined benefit to defined contribution, the decline of unions, and the shifting nature of healthcare (cost, access/availability). (And maybe automation?)

  3. #15 is kind of questionable, isn’t it? It’s not as though no one was talking about retirement planning back then. Are the people who chose not to invest for retirement the same as the ones who don’t even try to get the match from their employer’s 401K? Do we blame people for not saving enough when they were younger and could afford to delay unnecessary spending? There have been children’s stories about animals and insects preparing for winter since I was a kid. I don’t think it kosher to lord it over people who haven’t prepared for retirement, but they made their choices over a long time.

    1. Definitely. I mean, sure, you could create a better system (like Australia’s superannuation thing) but at the end of the day do people have agency and should they take responsibility for their choices?
      That’s something that RetireJapan keeps coming back to: if you don’t make sure you are going to be okay financially, who are you trusting to do that for you?