Jerry Garcia was born on August 1st, 1942 and died on August 9th, 1995. The eight days between his birthday and the day of his death are known as the “Days Between”. It also happens to be the name of a very poignant Grateful Dead song,
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The Philosophical Investor's Blog
Rising from the Ashes – Lessons From My Visit to Auschwitz & Birkenau
by 
Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
According to management guru Peter Drucker, one of the greatest traits a business leader can have is intellectual honesty. This is the ability to see the world as it is and not as you want it to be and then to act accordingly. This applies equally as well to great investors like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
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Suck it Up and Tough it Out – The Lessons Hardship Can Teach
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Tom Petty used to sing that you don’t have to live like a refugee. On the other hand, John Mellencamp said “suck it up and tough it out, be the best you can.” So what would most people choose?
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Bill Walton – The Epitome of Perseverance
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
I recently finished Bill Walton’s autobiography and thoroughly enjoyed it. Talk about someone who has had a zest for life and embodies perseverance. That is one of the great benefits I get out of reading about other people’s lives.
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How to Unify Countries – The Power of Sports
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
With the World Cup having been completed this past weekend I thought I would tap into some interesting research about soccer and its ability to unify countries that are typically very tribal and fractious. I saw some of this firsthand during my recent trip to Africa where it was pretty evident that tribalism is very much alive and well.
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The Only Way Out Is Through – Lessons From Africa Applied at The Dead & Company Concert
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
There is a line from a Grateful Dead song that says:
I remember on our recent long sojourn to Africa and Asia there were a number of days when we are out on excursions and it was oppressively hot. The temperatures were close to 100° and the humidity was well over 50%.
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Creating Gifts that Keep on Giving
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
35 years ago on the night of June 27th, a friend of mine and I slept on very uncomfortable concrete outside of Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin. The catalyst for this was fear of missing out as we were intent on doing our best to position ourselves to secure a great location for the next night’s concert being put on by the Grateful Dead as all seats were general admission.
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What You See Is What You Get? LIBOR & The Flat Yield Curve
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Under most economic environments longer-term debt instruments yield more than shorter ones. This is the case in order to compensate investors for risks related to purchasing power eroding and more uncertainty and volatility that can increase the probability of default (outside Treasuries). In addition, our banking system is based on banks accessing short-term deposits and being able to make longer-term loans and investments which necessitates longer rates being higher than shorter ones so banks can be profitable.
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Bond Market Skepticism & Emerging Market Carnage
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell 
I couldn’t stay away from interest rates for too long. Last week was very fascinating. There was a lot of news that should have been quite bearish for long-term bonds but instead, yields moved down by about 5 basis points for the week for the 10-year Treasury note.
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Hello Darkness My Old Friend
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
For this week I was originally going to continue my analysis of interest-rate cycles since last week, I looked at increasing interest rate cycles and I was intending to look at decreasing cycles this week. In light of the widely reported and fairly startling suicide of Kate Spade and now Anthony Bourdain,
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