“It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Top 10 Investment Tips from the Ancient Texts of Classic Rock ‘n’ Roll
Justin here. I found this absolute gem of a article on the CFA Institute's website. Written by Thomas Collimore, CFA, (Director, Investor Education for CFA Institute) it has some great tips and might even make you hum some classic rock. Here's a sample:
8. “Lady Madonna,” The Beatles (1968)
“Lady Madonna, children at your feet,
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet.
Who finds the money when you pay the rent?
Did you think that money was heaven sent?”
Plan, plan, and then plan again. Committing yourself to a realistic investment plan requires understanding your resources and obligations as well as the essential attributes of your future desired lifestyle. As you plan your investment strategy, leave room for investment underperformance. Committing your plan to writing may force you to address issues that you might otherwise glide over.
Go here for the full list of tips inspired by hits from bands like The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, and Aerosmith touching on topics such as Expenses, Longevity Risk, Taxes, and Professional Designations. It's rare to find something worth reading that's this easy to read. Good work Mr. Collimore.
Monday, December 07, 2009
The 'Are You Unemployed' Game Show
Justin here. The folks at Mint.com have done it again. Here's a great video explaining real unemployment. Kinda makes you think that the "great" news last week wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Everything I Needed to Know . . .
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Who Is Paying Taxes?
Justin here. We're getting near year-end and so taxes are on the brain. I ran across this graphic from Mint.com. They do some really great visual explanations (they recently did one on reverse mortgages) but, seeing as though my second language is "Charts and Graphs", they could probably make a diagram about paint drying and I'd be fascinated. Enjoy.

Personal FinanceSoftware – Mint.com
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Paul Krugman Thoughts
Justin here. I went with a friend last night to see Paul Krugman speak at the Guilford College Bryan Series. I've got a number of things on my plate today so my review/thoughts will be brief.
- He talked about how we got into this mess ('shadow banking', poor regulation, leverage),
- How this was/is a global crisis (Spain, UK, even countries without bubbles felt it because they were connected.)
- What we did right (cut interest rates, stimulus, flexible fed),
- How we get out this crisis quickly (no silver bullet that will save us like railroads, world wars, and IT did for recessions past . . . only remote quick fix could be green technology, but even that has a lot of barriers and lag time, and 10% unemployment is a HUGE number will take a lot of GDP growth to get over),
- How, more likely, to get out of it slowly (possibly unions (which, to my surprise got a round of applause), possible further stimulus, cut interest rates if we could go any lower)
- Final point was that Keynes said "the shortage of capital through use, decay and obsolescence causes a sufficiently obvious scarcity to increase the marginal efficiency" meaning that our ipods will break, our computers will become slow, and our tires will wear out. Although slow, this process will create demand and innovation.