Category: Money
-
Masking tape and the importance of purpose
When I was a kid with an amazingly active imagination and a good bit of time on my hands, I would often find myself rummaging about the house for tape to use on some brainy idea or other, generally involving Batman figurines. And I can remember to this day how frustrated…
-
The Wells Fargo fraud was inevitable
Maybe you’ve seen this; maybe you haven’t. But Wells Fargo was fined $185 million yesterday by a collection of regulators for fraudulently opening up two million unnecessary accounts for its “valued customers,” simply because new accounts means new fees. And this wasn’t the result of two or three rogue branches–like, I’ve…
-
Following rules no one taught us
“The English language is a rascal.” I came across a post over at Kottke today that blew my mind in a way that was at once disturbing and fantastic. The whole point of the post was to show that there is a very specific order for adjectives when we string more…
-
Sometimes persistence makes things worse
My wife, bless her, does not drink coffee. She hates coffee only slightly less than she hates cigarettes–which is a lot–and is, curiously enough, repulsed even by the SMELL of coffee. But coffee is one of the world’s greatest gifts, in my opinion, so I ask her almost every day…
-
A choice between Aston Martin and Bob.
Did you know that you can buy a stroller (for a baby) made by Aston Martin? Did you know that it would cost you $4,000? I present this, for now, without comment. We’ll come back to it momentarily. Sometimes, when I tell people about the sort of work I do, I…
-
Luck is real and it matters
People who are wealthy don’t like to think of luck as having played much of a role in their wealth, and this is understandable. Human nature dictates that we like to take all the credit for the good things that happen to us, and none of the credit for the…
-
Stop measuring so much
The thing about measuring growth, whether it’s the height of your kids or the amount of your investments, is that the more often you do it, the less it seems growth occurs. But of course measuring has absolutely zero effect on growth. It does seem to have a very real psychological…
-
Biggie and emergent properties
Sometimes complex systems–like the human brain, or the universe that quantum physics studies–display what are called “emergent properties.” The phenomenon the term describes goes something like this: Suppose you have a widget that seems to be doing something fairly simple, and then you get a bunch of those widgets and put them together. You might understandably…
-
A question about big purchases
Next time you have a decision to make about a big purchase (whatever that means for you), ask yourself this: Will this make me feel the need to apologize to other people when they find out I’ve purchased it? I’m not sure, but maybe this question will force us to…
-
It’s okay to quit
Some of us are overcommitted. We’re compulsive yes-sayers. Maybe you need to quit something today?
Meaningful Returns 