“If you simply do what everyone else has already done, you will be rewarded with the same mediocre results everyone else has already gotten. The only model for success is to avoid most of the world’s models for success.” – Mark Manson
We were mostly in place back in Utah for August, after being on the move from essentially mid-May through July. However, not too much notable to report. Lots of riding mixed with a bit of Coursera studying (Contract Law 1 by Yale). Online learning has to be a major component of the future of our education system – to expand access to larger portion of the population and reduce the costs and other impediments to education. The admissions practices of elite private universities and student loan forgiveness are a distraction.
Here are my most influential reads for the month – in no particular order:
- Common Probability Errors to Avoid – “If you’re trying to gain a rapid understanding of a new area, one of the most important things you can do is to identify common mistakes people make, then avoid them. “
- The Intel Split – “Intel’s factories, denied monopoly access to cutting edge x86 chips, will now have to compete with TSMC to earn not just 3rd-party business, but business from Intel’s own design team.”
- On the business, strategy, and impact of technology – “Smartphones, though, provided a reason to build up the software layer from scratch, with efficiency, not performance, as the paramount goal.”
- Blackstone ❤️ private credit – “the simple fact is that institutional investors like the smoothness of private markets.”
- The Tide of Price over Volume – “There are very few chances to find the elasticity of demand. And – for the time being – there are ample excuses to figure it out.”
- Bear market investors think different – “And it is this lack of overoptimism why investors who have learned their trade in a bear market have slightly better performance on average than investors who have learned their trade in a bull market, as I have discussed here.”
- A giant wealth transfer is why the economy isn’t responding to Fed – “it is virtually certain that central governments’ fiscal deficits will be large, and it is highly probable that they will grow at an increasing rate as the increasing debt service costs plus increasing other budget costs compound upward, and, as they increase, governments will need to sell more debt, so there will be a self-reinforcing debt spiral that will lead to market-imposed debt limits while central banks will be forced to print more money and buy more debt as they experience losses and deteriorating balance sheets”
- John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government – “The Declaration of Independence has no legal force under American law.”
- Guest Contribution: “The End of Zero Interest Rates” – “US short-term rates had been near-zero for nine years [2009-15 and 2020-21] out of the preceding 13 years, since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. “
- Have Bonds Finally Reached Escape Velocity? – “In short, bonds with a duration under 5 have likely already reached escape velocity. T-notes in the 5-10 year duration range are close to escape velocity, but not quite there yet. And long bonds are still far from escape velocity.”
Note: This is based on when I read the article, not necessarily when it was first published. Unfortunately, my backlog of things I would like to read always seems to dwarf the amount of time I can devote to reading.
Updated stats:
Read Articles | Books | |
January | 80 | 0 |
February | 62 | 2 |
March | 67 | 2 |
April | 140 | 4 |
May | 37 | 3 |
June | 65 | 5 |
July | 85 | 4 |
August | 66 | 5 |
September | ||
October | ||
November | ||
December | ||
Total | 602 | 25 |