Compounding....................

More than 2,000 books are dedicated to how Warren Buffett built his fortune.  Many of them are wonderful.  But few pay enough attention to the simplest fact: Buffett's fortune isn't due to just being a good investor, but being a good investor since he was literally a child.

     As I write this Warren Buffett's net worth is $84.5 billion.  Of that, $84.2 billion was accumulated after his 50th birthday.  $81.5 billion came after he qualified for Social Security, in his mid-60s.

     Warren Buffett is a phenomenal investor.  But you miss a key point if you attach all his success to investing acumen.   The real key to his success is that he's been a phenomenal investor for three quarters of a century.

-Morgan Housel, from his book, The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness 

Compelling..................

One could argue that the primary role of a leader is to identify and convey a compelling North Star. If your people are clear on a North Star, they are clear on (almost) everything else. Everything comes to a focal point. And it aligns their efforts. It guides them on all of their work, including their micro-actions, micro-routines, and micro-behaviors – without requiring micro-management.

-as extracted from this Gaping Void post

The basic guidelines

 ............................................of investing.

About those electric vehicles............

 Pushing EVs is essentially selling snake oil with limited benefit at astronomical cost.

-as culled from here

via

on the verge......................

     My adventures with Inbox Zero were only the tip of the iceberg.  I've squandered countless hours—and a fair amount of money, spent mainly on fancy notebooks and felt-tip pens—in service to the belief that if I could only find the right time management system, build the right habits, and apply sufficient self-discipline, I might actually be able to win the struggle with time, once and for all.  (I was enabled in this delusion by writing a weekly newspaper column on productivity, which gave me an excuse to experiment with new techniques on the grounds that I was doing so for work purposes; I was like an alcoholic conveniently employed as a wine expert.) . . .Using these techniques often made me feel as if I were on the verge of ushering in a golden era of calm, undistracted productivity and meaningful activity.  But it never arrived.  Instead, I just got more stressed and unhappy.

-Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks:  Time Management for Mortals 

The bird.............................

 .............................photographs of the year.

via

Hopes......................

 I hope you do more than just survive.  I hope you act boldly without apologizing for who you are or the things you love.  I hope you make art and listen to songs that make you sing out loud.  I hope you discover new places and hidden coffee shops.  I hope you fall in love with stories and dance in snowflakes and raindrops.  I hope you achieve all your dreams and find the courage to love yourself.

                           I hope you live.

-Courtney Peppernell

Faithful readers....................

 .............are aware I am a big fan of Ben Carlson and his A Wealth of Common Sense blog.  While that hasn't changed, there is a rather large bone to pick with his recent "How the Fed screwed up the Housing Market" post.  Any discussion about the housing market between 2015 and 2022 that does not focus on the lack of supply of housing options (both single and multi family) will miss the main point.  No matter how hard economists may try to repeal the law of supply and demand, they can't.  The supply/demand imbalance in the housing market has never been greater since the early 1960s.  The Fed can play with interest rates to their hearts' content.  Such actions may help or hinder specific buyers/sellers, but until the supply of new homes catches up with a decade of under-building on a national scale, the culprit behind a screwy housing market will be the shortage of new construction.

the care for one another...................

Come all ye conservatives and liberals

who want to conserve the good things and be free,

come away from the merchants of big answers,

whose hands are metalled with power;

from the union of anywhere and everywhere

by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price

and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;

from the union of work and debt, work and despair;

from the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.

From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,

secede into the care for one another

and for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.

-Wendell Berry, as excerpted from The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union

a tough question...................

 The grass is not always greener on the other side.  Ask yourself: "Why is my grass dying?"

-Courtney Peppernell

side effects..................

      I once heard an artist say that when a person has no problems, the mind automatically finds a way to invent some.  I think what most people—especially educated, pampered  middle-class white people—consider "life problems" are really just side effects of not having anything more important to worry about.

     It then follows that finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive use of your time and energy.  Because if you don't find that meaningful something, your fucks will be given to meaningless and frivolous causes.

-Mark Manson, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*uck: A Counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life

Confuse not.......................

 Now I will tell thee an unusual truth about men and sons of men.  It is this: That what each of us calls our "necessary expenses" will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.

     Confuse not the necessary expenses with thy desires. . . . All men are burdened with more desires than they can gratify. . . Select those that are necessary and others that are possible through the expenditure of nine-tenths of thy income.  Cross out the rest and consider them but a part of that great multitude of desires that must go unsatisfied and regret them not.

-George S. Clason, The Richest Man In Babylon