Last week I got into a discussion on Twitter with a long-time conservative reader who was upset about something he called "tribalism." We went back and forth for a while but I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and then I remembered that I had recently heard the National Review "The Editors" podcast endorse a book by an NRO staffer named Jonah Goldberg called … [Read more...] about “Suicide of the West” is not a very good book
Cumulative losses as the psychic cost of investing
I was playing around with a pretty cool tool called Portfolio Visualizer and got to thinking about the difference between how finance professionals and ordinary people talk about investing. For finance types, an asset or a portfolio has an expected return, which might be calculated using historical returns or a forward-looking rule like Jack Bogle's "reasonable expectations" … [Read more...] about Cumulative losses as the psychic cost of investing
What a culture of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship would look like
I write a lot about entrepreneurship. This is not because I think everyone should be an entrepreneur. For one thing, not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, and part of having an economy that works for everyone means making room for folks who just want to show up at work and do their job. The problem with our current system of social and economic organization is that we've … [Read more...] about What a culture of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship would look like
Wrapping my head around variable annuities
I've written before about indexed annuities, one of the most expensive, abusive, unnecessary financial products known to man, but I've recently had a couple occasions to learn more about variable annuities, the confusingly-similarly-named product offered at lower cost by more reputable firms, like Vanguard and Fidelity. Variable annuities are expensive There are two expenses … [Read more...] about Wrapping my head around variable annuities
Employers have forgotten how to hire. But they’ll learn
I've written before about what I called the high-employment generation, which I use to describe people entering the workforce today who have no memory of the long, grinding recession which destroyed countless American communities in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Four pieces have come across my desk in the last few weeks which highlight the … [Read more...] about Employers have forgotten how to hire. But they’ll learn