Skip to content

Investing

Timing is Everything

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and begreedy when others are fearful.” Warren Buffett The Sage from Omaha The photo is of the Chicago skyline from near the Navy pier. Warren Buffett is now 93 years old.

Made in Ghana

I earned this shirt as a volunteer at the Se’dav Va’aki Museum (formerly The Pueblo Grande Museum). But that is a different story. This story is that the shirt was manufactured in Ghana. Here is proof: If I were young and looking to help the poor and potentially make a lot of money I’d move to Ghana or Kenya and go to work in manufacturing. This shirt is proof that it can be done. For labor intensive manufacturing Africa for the next few years will… Read More »Made in Ghana

Risky Times

“The attempt to control risk by lowering interest rates reduces the cost of taking risk and so ends up increasing the aggregate amount of risk in the system.” Edward Chancellor, author The Price of Time

Pages: 1 2

Inflation

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”  John Maynard Keynes Keynesian economics is very well regarded even though Keynes was not able to anticipate the Great Depression which began in 1930. He is in good company since Ben Bernanke was not able to predict the great recession of 2008. Keynes was fully invested and lost most of his personal fortune in the stock market crash. The statue is of the famous… Read More »Inflation

The Purpose of Business

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.“ Milton Friedman, Free to Choose This is Friedman at his most controversial. I agree with him. They don’t have two or three different ways of scoring a basketball game and there should only be one way of scoring… Read More »The Purpose of Business

Capital

“Capital will go where it is wanted and stay where it is well treated.” Walter Wriston in The Twilight of Sovereignty page 61 Photo is of Zimbabwe’s inflated currency back in 2006. Can this happen here?

Artificial Leaf

This is a synthesis post with some very good news.  Scientists at Caltech have made a synthetic leaf that using the suns energy converts water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.  So far they have only done it on a small scale but this is really exciting news.  It can solve both the problem of global warming and the shrinking supply of fossil fuels.  What will happen next? I recently read The Wright Brothers by David McCullough and one of the things that I learned was that… Read More »Artificial Leaf

Welfare for the Rich

“Tesla appeals to confused consumers who simultaneously want to display ostentation and green virtue.”  a great line by Holman Jenkins on the WSJ editorial page. My beef is that Tesla is welfare for the rich.  A $10,000 tax credit for the car buyer.  Fuel economy credits for Tesla that they sell to pickup truck manufacturers and an unknown amount of tax credits and local government benefits for the privilege of having one of their facilities.   Rich people should be allowed to spend their money… Read More »Welfare for the Rich

Investing During the Sovereign Debt Crisis

Back in December I wrote about what I called The Big Bubble and asked the question: What should an investor do to survive the looming government debt bubble?   Now along comes a book that attempts to answer that question.  Investing in the Age of Sovereign Defaults by Peter Treadway addresses that question.  He hedges a little about the timing and gives a range of options but the example that stuck with me was that during the hyperinflation of the 1920’s in Germany the place… Read More »Investing During the Sovereign Debt Crisis