Category: finance
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On Wealth
When the Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig was accused of being “a coddled member of the silver-spoon generation” he decided to confront the accusation by retelling tales from his less-than-privileged upbringing. In doing so, however, he made some poignant remarks about wealth: The most important lesson that I learned, I believe, is that money…
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A German View on Tackling the Recession
Bertrand Benoit, the Financial Times‘ Berlin bureau chief, discusses why the US, French and British don’t understand Germany’s “refusal to tackle the recession head-on”. What is happening is a classic clash of cultures, and anyone puzzling to grasp Germany’s anaemic reaction to the financial crisis and its economic fallout could do worse than take a…
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Warren Buffett’s 10 Ways to Get Rich
Reprinted from Parade Magazine: Warren Buffett’s ’10 Ways to Get Rich’, written by Alice Schroeder; the author of Buffett’s authorised biography, The Snowball. Reinvest Your Profits Be Willing To Be Different Never ‘Suck Your Thumb’ Spell Out The Deal Before You Start Watch Small Expenses Limit What You Borrow Be Persistent Know When To Quit…
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Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis
An excellent infographic on understanding the current financial crisis from one of my favourite data visualisation sites, FlowingData.
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A Modern Depression
An excellent look at what a modern economic depression would look like. We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that. What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started? It’s not a…
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The Correlation Between Poverty and IQ
The Mouse Trap, Sandy Guatam’s excellent blog on cognitive and developmental psychology, discusses the correlation between a low IQ and poverty, and the implications thereof. What are the implications for society of a more mechanistic understanding of the effects of childhood poverty on brain development? To different degrees, and in different ways, we regard children as the responsibility of…
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Your Personal Love–Growth–Cash Triangles
Personal love–growth–cash triangles: a visual method for evaluating your life, your career, and everything in between. “If you have a shit job, come up with new ways to learn something out of it. If you have a hobby you’re super-excited about, try to turn it into a business. If you’re just starting a new gig,…
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A More Positive View of McDonald’s
The Washington Post talks to Jim Skinner, the McDonald’s CEO, and presents a positive viewpoint of McDonald’s. McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85 percent of its U.S. restaurants — average annual sales, $2.2 million — are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s…
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Debating the Merits of Neuroeconomics and Behavioural Economics
Prospect magazine hosts a debate on whether or not behavioural economics is as important as many of its advocates laud. As the BPS Research Digest says, In this […] debate, Pete Lunn (author of Basic Instincts) argues that behavioural economics will “deliver a revolutionary new way of understanding the world.” In response Tim Harford (author…
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Should the Young Run-Up Debts to Buy Stocks?
Tim Harford, author of The Logic of Life and The Undercover Economist, believes that young people “should be buying more stocks and running up debts to do so”. He supports this controversial viewpoint with the following: The logical way to fight generational risk is to borrow money to make large, regular investments in stocks while…