I've recently read and listened to a number of interviews and stories about Harvard scholar Graham Alison's recent book "Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?" The book catalogues China's present and future rise as a great economic and military power, and describes 16 similar cases in history, with some resulting in war, and others peace. As the … [Read more...] about Why China doesn’t scare me
What did you “miss” in the bitcoin bubble?
I take almost no interest in bitcoin or any other cryptoasset as a store of value or investment (although there's no reason the technology couldn't be useful in other ways), but there's one specific mistake I often see people make that I want to offer a friendly correction to. Bitcoin are not discrete units When people talk about stocks they frequently say things like, "if … [Read more...] about What did you “miss” in the bitcoin bubble?
Is this the next high interest savings opportunity?
My go-to resource for high-interest savings and checking accounts has long been depositaccounts.com, which has a pretty good list of accounts offering unusually high interest rates on deposits when you meet certain requirements, usually connected to either debit or credit card spending activity, or both. Such accounts are great; what's not to love about high-interest, FDIC- and … [Read more...] about Is this the next high interest savings opportunity?
Podcast recommendations for January, 2018
I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, and when I mention this, people often ask me for recommendations. In general, I don't think I'm a great source of podcast recommendations, because I'm extremely picky and have extremely specific tastes. For example, I can't listen to any of the most popular NPR podcasts because I find them agonizingly overproduced; you don't need to … [Read more...] about Podcast recommendations for January, 2018
The only investment you’ll ever make that matters
I was having a conversation with a young investor yesterday when I mentioned in passing my view that the latest clue that the market cycle is ending is when an enormous corporate tax cut became not a possibility, but a certainty, and share prices didn't budge. In other words, the market had already fully priced in the special dividends and share buybacks we'll see over the next … [Read more...] about The only investment you’ll ever make that matters