The Monday Read

Stockholm Syndrome

Just spent ten days in Stockholm in November. Pretty gloomy. Would recommend visiting in summer instead.

Here are this week’s links:

  1. Career advice: SO YOU WANNA BE A CHEF — BY BOURDAIN
  2. This is a really interesting point: Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People
  3. The longer we wait, the bigger the bill gets: Joseph Stiglitz: ‘America should be a warning to other countries’
  4. It’s all about the struggle: Happiness Isn’t About Experiences Either
  5. Yesssssss: Tiny Improvements, Big Results
  6. This is so obnoxious: The ‘Radical Saving’ Trend Is Based on Fantasy
  7. Things to consider when building a house: Squaring the Circle for Traditional Buildings
  8. What will you do in the next crash? When things get wild.
  9. How susceptible to social pressure are you? Under pressure.
  10. Dr. Seuss style personal finance: Story Time.
  11. But what about Japan? Learning The Wrong Lessons
  12. Stocks down, good. Stocks up, bad: How A Stock Market Crash Could Accelerate Your FIRE

What do you think? I enjoyed #1 of course, but #2 and #10 also tickled my fancy.
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And here are some books I finished/bought/started reading:

    • The Silkworm (J.K.Rowling’s second detective story under a pen name). My cousin came up with a good point: the main character’s name (Cormoran Strike) sounds like he should be a wizard in the Harry Potter universe. Enjoyed this. It builds well and has a good twist.
    • 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.

3 Responses

  1. #12: I certainly trust AH, but the word “crash” appears once, and “drop” several times–and it’s never referred to as a dip.
    [quote]But the recent market crash has tossed water on her flames. “I started to invest in a portfolio of ETFs about a year and a half ago,” she says. “But the market’s drop has me wondering if I’ve made the right decision. It has me thinking that perhaps I should invest in real estate instead.”[/quote]
    (A) It’s not clear from the comment what type is intended, but a reasonable portfolio should probably have a portion in real estate anyway. (And I think the RE sector has done better than the rest of the mkt over the last few weeks or month.)
    (B) I realize that the post is probably set up to illustrate the point about DCA (and a good one it is). But “buy the dip” might also have been mentioned, at least for those who might have had some extra cash on the side. (I bought a couple things over 10/29-10/30.)

  2. I enjoyed #1 and #10. The example in #12 is very dependent on the unusual situation where someone is able to contribute $24,000/year to a portfolio that starts at $50,000 (almost 50% added to principal the first year). If you’re in the more typical situation of adding maybe 1-5% a year to your portfolio from current earnings the best scenario switches to the series of years with the highest compound annual return.

  3. Concur on numbers 1, 2 and 10.
    Additionally, amen to #7! It reminded me of a comment I saw right after 3/11, when Japan had suddenly shut down all its nuclear power plants and was struggling to economize to prevent overuse of its limited supply of electricity. The commenter (Phil Brasor, I think) made the point that, if Japanese homes had been properly insulated, they wouldn’t have had the need to economize much.