A weapon....................................

       In psychology there are at least two biases that drive this pattern.  One is confirmation bias:  seeing what we expect to see.  The other is desirability bias:  seeing what we want to see.  These biases don't just prevent us from applying our intelligence.  They can actually contort our intelligence into a weapon against the truth.  We find reasons to preach our faith more deeply, prosecute our case more passionately, and ride the tidal wave of our political party.  The tragedy is that we're usually unaware of the resulting flaws in our thinking.

        My favorite bias is the "I'm not biased" bias, in which people believer they're more objective that others.  It turns out that smart people are more likely to fall into this trap. The brighter you are, the harder it can be to see your own limitations.  Being good at thinking can make you worse at rethinking.

-Adam Grant,  Think Again:  The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Allowance.....................................

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If only you could avoid the human element....

 I don't want to be a great problem solver.  I want to avoid problems—prevent them from happening and doing it right from the beginning.

-Peter Bevelin

Reconsider.............................

 But the twentieth-century experiments of nationalism and socialism, of syndicalism in factories and central planning for investment, of proliferating regulation for imagined but not factually documented imperfections in the market, did not work. And most of the pessimisms about how we live now have proven to be mistaken. It is a puzzle. Perhaps you yourself still believe in nationalism or socialism or proliferating regulation. And perhaps you are in the grip of pessimism about growth or consumerism or the environment or inequality. Please, for the good of the wretched of the earth, reconsider.”

-Deirdre N. McCloskey, Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World

Adulting.......................

 

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Beauty...........................

 

The wonder that is Sainte Chapelle

On patience and restraint.......................

      For a younger generation and those to come, the presidency would fuse with television, and politics with storytelling and drama.  Eisenhower knew that leadership has many outward signs, but getting constant attention is not one of them.  For Eisenhower patience and restraint were also critical attributes of sound leadership.  He was confident enough to know that action—any action at all—may be satisfying in the short term but, if not justifiable, could bring with it untold consequences over the longer haul.  This could be seen in his refusal to intervene in Vietnam, for example.

-Susan Eisenhower:  How Ike Led:  The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions

Fifty years ago.........................................

Santana.........................................................Toussaint L'Overture

 

Strive.............................

      Col. William Draper, President Eisenhower's Air Force One pilot, told former president Eisenhower that after many years of service he was being forced into retirement because of a heart problem, which would necessitate a new career as an airline executive.  He confided that he was worried about whether he would be able to succeed in the corporate world.  On listening to Draper, Ike said to his longtime pilot, "Go ahead, be scared, and do it anyway."

     Whether Eisenhower was frightened or scared we will never know.  But he once articulated his simple formula in a letter to Mamie that contained the critical word.  He wrote that it was imperative on him to "struggle is to do one's best; to keep the brain and the conscience clear; never be swayed by unworthy motives of inconsequential reasons, but to strive to unearth the basic factors involved and then do one's duty."

-Susan Eisenhower, How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions

Fun with statistics.................

That vertical line at the end of the chart represents the money supply - a 450% increase.  Scary? Inflationary?  Maybe, but not so fast.  Morgan Housel weighs in with some context:

Money supply has increased from $4 trillion a year ago to $18 trillion today.

A 450% increase!

That’s something you might see in a third-world country with hyperinflation.

But before you dump life savings into gold and build a bunker, here’s the punchline: The huge majority of the increase you’re seeing in this chart is not money printing or new money creation.

It’s an accounting rule change. . . .

Of the $14 trillion increase in M1, $11.2 trillion (80%) came from an accounting rule change that shifted money from savings accounts to checking accounts.

A fundamental error...........................

 David Brooks thinks it is your day job that can make you rich.    He suggests avoiding coding = as of 2015 there were nearly eight times as many software developers in this country as there were dentists, but nearly as many dentists in the top one percent as there were software developers.  He recommends becoming a surgeon, a lawyer, or a hedge-fund manager.  

For what it is worth, an easier path to a brighter future is likely to be found in the trades.  Plumbers and electricians can write their own ticket today.  Lest you forget, a good sales person is worth their weight in gold.

Brooks's error?  It is not what you earn that makes you wealthy, it is what you do with what you earn.

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On favoritism...........................

      Eisenhower believed that nothing destroyed the morale of a fighting man more than seeing favoritism in the ranks.  In thinking about his experience, he once observed: "Morale is at one and the same time the strongest and most delicate of growths.  It withstands shocks—even disasters of the battlefield, but can be destroyed utterly by favoritism, neglect, or injustice."  He asserted that the same was true in civilian life.

-Susan Eisenhower, How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Deicisons

Temper.............................

      In times of stress, perhaps the greatest struggle Ike had to contend with was the desire—the imperative—to control his temper:  "Anger cannot win," he wrote in his diary in 1942.  "It cannot even think clearly . . . for many years I've made it a religion never to indulge myself, but yesterday I failed."

-Susan Eisenhower, How Ike Led:  The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions

Be careful out there......................

 Ben’s rule number one of the unfortunate realities of the investment business is a talented sales staff will trump a talented investment staff when attracting capital from investors.

-Ben Carlson, from his Investments as a Status Symbol post

The more things change.............................

      Eisenhower's professional responsibilities were, as he described them, "maintaining the peace we had just won."  And Ike was concerned by what he saw around him.  "Washington," he observed, "seemed little bothered about the long-term future."  In his words, the city was more consumed in rewriting the past by looking, for instance, for "a scapegoat for Pearl Harbor . . . But of the future, piled high with threats to our victory and to our continuing security, there seemed to be little thought."

-Susan Eisenhower, How Ike Led:  The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions

Fifty years ago......................................

Van Morrison...................................................Tupelo Honey

 

Just a reminder.................................

 

Checking in...........................................

 ................................with Karen Salmansohn:

Well, tell us how you really feel..................

 I really want to send our public health officials walking across a live minefield wearing blindfolds, so that they can get a sense of how they are providing us with information that would be helpful.

-Arnold Kling, from this post

Continuing education.........................

 Spend the day profitably?   Spend it pondering these quotes.