Category: finance
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The Warren Buffett Interviews
In my opinion there are two great Warren Buffett interviews; both by CNBC: The Billionaire Next Door, where Buffett discusses a couple of his investments and addresses his personal investment history and philosophy. J.D. at Get Rich Slowly gives a good overview of the interview. His epic three-hour interview with Becky Quick (transcript only).
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Encouraging Debt With Advertising
In Home Equity Frenzy Was a Bank Ad Come True, The New York Times‘ Louise Story digs up the history on financial advertising encouraging consumers to take on debt – specifically, home equity loans. Advertising historians look back at the ’80s as the time when bank marketing came into its own. Citigroup led the way…
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A New Look at Health Insurance and Gym Use
From Tyler Cowen’s Markets in self-constraint: A Danish gym chain is now offering membership free of charge, with the only caveat that you have to show up, in order for the membership to be free. If you fail to show up once per week you will be billed the normal monthly membership fee for that…
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Books to Understand the Current Economic Climate
The Washington Post recently asked a host of ‘smart people’ for recommendations on what book will help us make sense of the current economic climate. Those asked include Peter Orszag (Director, Congressional Budget Office); Greg Mankiw (professor of economics at Harvard University); and John Allen Paulos (author and mathematics professor at Temple University). However, my…
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Commanding Heights
I recently watched all six hours of Commanding Heights; a great documentary that attempts to trace the rise of free markets during the last century, as well as the process of globalization. It acts almost like a primer on 20th century economics. I have just re-discovered the PBS supplementary website for Commanding Heights and am…
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The Millionaire and the Squatter
Originally an idea for “professional philanthropic development”, Michael—a multi-millionaire who’s giving away $78m over a 10 year period—lived with a homeless Chicago man for one weekend. Freakonomics covers the story in Michael, Meet Curtis: Philanthropy Gets Personal. Curtis cooked another plate of chicken and beans. He was about to eat it, but once again he…
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The Smartest (Financial) Advice
When 40 finance greats are asked for the best financial lessons they ever learned, you’re sure to learn something. But who wants to trawl through 40 separate pages to get to all that advice (apart from me)? Stocks build wealth – with no work Don’t follow the herd Do what you love Know where your…
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Key Factors in the Economic Slowdown
The BBC has compiled a number of graphs vividly showing the key factors affecting the current economic ‘crisis’ – the results are quite enlightening. Some aspects aren’t deviating far from the general long-term trend (petrol prices); some are not as dramatic (with a long-term comparison) as some fear (house prices); while others genuinely are anomalies…
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Transparent or Secret Salaries?
Penelope Trunk—The Brazen Careerist—on why salaries should be transparent (and how to find out how much you should be paid). Who is being protected by secret salaries? Certainly not the employee—the more transparent salaries are, the more accurately an employee can assess his or her value to a company. You’d think that companies benefit from…
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Books on Behaviour, Irrationality, & Economics
I’m struggling to separate the wheat from the chaff in this list of books. I just know that hidden within some there must be a treasure trove of knowledge. The problem is: in which? Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions The Black Swan: The…