Monday, January 9, 2023

Fifty years ago


Bruce Springsteen............................Spirit in the Night

 

a fingertip.........................

 The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower.  We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away.  The means of learning are abundant—it's the desire to learn that is scarce.

-Naval Ravikant

Of course they do...................

 Men of refinement shrink from the House of Representatives as from a parish vestry.

-Walter Bagehot from this +/- 1859 essay

Sunday, January 8, 2023

certain affinities......................

      Flawed or not, Burr shared certain affinities with Jackson.  Both speculated in land, engaged in duels, and championed the interests of a growing West.  Importantly, they also resided outside of the prevailing American power structure.  Neither, in other words, were Virginians.  Jackson's refusal to join his congressional colleagues and laud Washington is on par with Burr's cutting insistence that the great general lacked completely "independence of character" and managed to somehow become a national hero "without talent."  Men on the make, they would have to make their own opportunities.

-David S. Brown,  The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson

In the background.........................


Bruce Springsteen.........................................Magic

It is early in the game, but "Unprecedented" has jumped to an enormous lead to be 2023's "Word of the Year".........

 We live in unprecedented times. The recession in 2020 was not so much a recession as it was a lockdown. Using “normal words” to describe the economy in the last 3 years, we believe, does not make sense. 

-Brian Wesbury

Whither the market in 2023.......?

 The only Wall Street strategist-type forecast I’m willing to make is this: The stock market will have a correction in 2023.

I’m not exactly going out on a limb here for one simple reason — the stock market has a correction every year.

My work shows over the past 100 years or so just 5% of all trading days experience an all-time high for the U.S. stock market. Invert that data and that means 95% of the time as a stock market investor is spent in a state of drawdown from an all-time high.

The stock market cannot go up every single day. In fact, historically the stock market is only up on roughly 55% of all days that it’s open and down on the other 45% of days.

-Ben Carlson

A simple equation......................

 Life Fulfillment = Time + Health + Money.

Apply this equation to creating meaningful experiences. Rinse and repeat.

Money isn’t last in the formula by accident. A billion dollars isn’t enough to overcome poor health and to starve yourself of meaningful experiences. Conversely, a modest sum of money goes a long way, combined with optimal health and strong social connections.

Many investors ignore this logic at their peril. Obsessing over money and letting it supersede time and health is the path to anxiety and disappointment, no matter how “rich” a person is perceived.

-Tony Isola

Putting 2022 to good use...............

 ..................................20 lessons learned.

4. If you have a problem with them, and them, and them, and them, the problem is probably you.

5. Failure is the tuition you pay for success.

10. Task yourself with a huge must-do project that has a deadline far out enough that you can safely procrastinate on it for a day or two. Watch your productivity on every other possible thing go way up to avoid that one.

17. One day, I hope not to measure my days in minutes or hours, but in miles walked and pages read.