Wishing you the happiest New Year possible....

 

currency...............

 

History worth looking at...........

 

 Franklin’s central point was that everyone needed to adjust their expectations, that neither political perfection nor moral purity was ever in the cards at the Constitutional Convention.

-Joseph Ellis, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding

via

About those free lunches...........

 

Improved confidence in the future is a good thing in and of itself, since it surely promotes greater saving and investment, which ultimately translate into more and better-paying jobs and higher living standards. On the other hand, finding good values in a period of tranquility becomes harder, and the market becomes more susceptible to disappointments. There's no free lunch, but things could certainly be a lot worse than they are today.

-Scott Grannis, from this post

blessed...................

 

We bless this year for all we learned,

For all we loved and lost

And for the quiet way it brought us

Nearer to our invisible destination.

-John O'Donohue

the free efforts..............

 

The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society—a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

-F. A. Hayek, as he concludes this "The Pretense of Knowledge" lecture

Crystal ball time........................

 

Bull markets can last longer than you think but we can’t have above-average returns forever.

Therein lies the biggest risk in 2026…or 2027 or 2028 or some undetermined year in the future.

Eventually, above-average returns lead to below-average returns. Sometimes the biggest reason for bad returns is because good returns lasted for so long.

Predictions are hard.

Inching our way.......................

 

The customer is always right...........?

 

more fun here

a difference maker..........

 

     The way you do anything is the way you do everything, and we found, over and over, that precision in the smallest of details translated into precision in bigger ones.

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Remember: there's often a brilliant idea right behind a bad one.

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     He discovered that when he gave the teams responsibility, they became more responsible; elevated by his trust in them, they stepped up into the role.

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     I've made it my mission to help the people who work for me see what's important about what they do.  Even at MoMA, we didn't see our guests as a bunch of customers looking for lunch; we saw them as museumgoers—people on an adventure, realizing their dream of being inspired at one of the greatest modern art museums on earth.  That simple shift had an automatic and profound impact on how our teams acted, and on the hospitality our guests received. . . .It's the difference between coming to work to do your job and coming to work to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

     Without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference in someone's life.  You must be able to name for yourself why your work matters.  And if you are a leader, you need to encourage everyone on your team to do the same.

-Will Guidara, a few excerpts from Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect

Not much improved....................

 

     Technology is fine, but the scientists and engineers only partially think through their problems.  They solve certain aspects but not the total, and as a consequence it is slapping us back in the face very hard.

-Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, 1983

hard enough to control your own.................

 

      The fact is, it is impossible to control someone else's thoughts.  Therefore, fearing what other people think, or trying to control their thoughts, is a complete waste of your time.

     You will never feel in control of your life, your feelings, your thoughts, or your actions until you stop being consumed with or trying to control what other people think about you.

-Mel Robbins, The Let Them Theory

Alexander.......................

 

The boy-emperor, barbarian though he remained after all of Aristotle's tutoring, had yet learned to revere the rich culture of Greece, and had dreamed of spreading that culture through the Orient in the wake of his victorious armies. . . .But he had underrated the inertia and resistance of the Oriental mind, and the mass and depth of Oriental culture.  It was only a youthful fancy, after all, to suppose that so immature and unstable a civilization as that of Greece could be imposed upon a civilization immeasurable more widespread, and rooted in the most venerable traditions.  The quantity of Asia proved too much for the quality of Greece.  Alexander himself, in the hour of his triumph, was conquered by the soul of the East; he married (among several ladies) the daughter of Darius; he adopted the Persian diadem and robe of state; he introduced into Europe the Oriental notion of the divine right of kings; and at last he astonished a sceptic Greece by announcing, in magnificent Eastern style, that he was a god.  Greece laughed; and Alexander drank himself to death.

-Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

This is just.............................

 

..............................................bananas.

Our guiding star....................

 

...............................has turned twenty!