Tag Archives: Life & Stuff

When I was 10 years old I read the classic “Where the Red Fern Grows”. It’s a book about a young boy who adopts two dogs who eventually get into a fight with a mountain lion and die. I hated that book because it was the first time I was really confronted with the concept of death in a deeply emotional way. When I was 30 I was bike riding through the Englischer Gartens when I came across a flock of sheep. The sheep were at the edge of a road and one decided to cross the road in front...

I turn 40 years old today. Since I hate birthday presents I figured I’d pass along some of the presents people have taught me over the last 40 years.  1) Always try to be a good person. This is the most obvious one and also often the hardest one. Life is hard and everyone is fighting their own personal battles. Help them through it by being kind enough to try to understand their battle. 2) Never mistake money for wealth. The person who mistakes money for wealth will live a life...

Everyone deserves second chances in life. And everyone is a work in progress. Those are the big lessons for me after watching Tiger Woods win The Masters today. It took me a long time to learn to like golf. It’s a frustrating game that requires a terrible amount of patience. But as I get older it dawns on me – golf is a lot like life in that you spend huge amounts of time waiting to become average at something only to get glimmers of hope bunched in with persistent disappointments. And...

There was an interesting article in the NY Times this weekend titled “How to Retire in Your 30s With $1 Million in the Bank”. The Times tells the story of a growing movement called FIRE –  Financial Independence Retire Early. The basic gist of the movement is this: Don’t let money control your life. Value happiness over materialism. Don’t get caught up in the rat race. I think these are all wonderful ideas and worth striving for. But I also think reality is much more complex than that and...

I was reading this article in the NY Times about a wide ranging diet study. They performed a meticulously controlled test to study what type of diet works best. Their conclusion: “The bottom line is that the best diet for you is still the one you will stick to. No one knows better than you what that diet might be. You’ll most likely have to figure it out for yourself.” One of my favorite things about investing is its similarities with dieting and health. Mainly, investing is really...

My recent post on guns got a lot more attention than I expected. It wasn’t a fully hashed out view of mine which was careless and unfortunate because I got a flood of emails from people on both sides who thought I was overlooking important points. Which I was, because it was a short blog post. The most common response was that I was not actually proposing anything. Which is true. I think this is an impossible issue to solve because I think it’s a serious cultural problem that is so...

Let’s take a break for a minute from the usual economic and finance commentary to talk about something that I think is important – guns in the U.S. I won’t profess to have some profound ideas about how to change what is clearly a crisis in this country. This problem is more complex than most people make it appear, but I wanted to spill some thoughts because I feel like I understand the issue fairly well. So, I grew up around guns in Virginia and West Virginia. Me and my brothers and...

I have a confession – I am a recovering sports addict. I’ve been sober for about 5 years and they’ve been 5 of the best years of my life. Sports consumption (mainly watching sports on TV) was a problem my whole life. I consumed very little sports when I was actively engaged in sports and as I got older and transitioned out of organized sports I consumed more of it. Here’s a rough look at the arc of my sports consumption over the years: (This is not scientifically measured) In retrospect,...

Share the post "What is “Enough”?"I got an email from a college student this morning asking me for financial advice and tips as they near graduation.  I always respond to emails like this and try to give people useful advice. But deep down in my heart I know I am mostly just repeating mundane and useless bull shit.  You know, work hard, do something you love, etc.  But then I sat down and I started thinking about my own situation and I realized that one of the big reasons I am happy is...

Share the post "Why Capitalism Can’t Fix Healthcare"I’m a staunch capitalist. I mean, I run a website called “Pragmatic Capitalism”. But here’s the thing – I know that capitalism isn’t a cure-all. It has to be implemented pragmatically. And while it works well most of the time there are times when capitalism isn’t the right answer. For instance, capitalism and national defense don’t work so great because producing things, blowing them up and losing your workforce in the process is a pretty...