Gary Carmell Posted in Advice, Economy, News, People, Trends, Uncategorized, Wealth No Comments ↓ 
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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Gary Carmell Posted in Economy, Interest Rates, Investing, News, Trends, Uncategorized, Wealth 2 Comments ↓ 
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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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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Last week we held our annual investor meeting and we had a record attendance of nearly 600 people (including employees). I told the audience that if we can grow our attendance by 7% every year that by the time we have our 100th annual meeting (this was year 49) then we should have over 11,000 in attendance.
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The tariff debate and controversy seems to be escalating and has been leading to tremendous stock market volatility. Whenever there is such a heated topic that catalyzes strong emotions I like to take a step back and find ways to drown out the cacophony. One of the ways I do this is to ignore today and look to history to see what I can learn from the past.
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I typically wouldn’t discuss Tax Reform until it has passed since it would usually be speculative, I am making an exception given that many of the parameters are known and because of its potential impact on housing. The basis of the plan was to cut the corporate tax rate first and then work around the constraints that Senate rules and supposed deficit hawks impose on the process.
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“A lot of other people are trying to be brilliant and we are just trying to stay rational. And it’s a big advantage.”
~ Charlie Munger
The Roadmap to Concentration
Continuing with some important takeaways from Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving,
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Gary Carmell Posted in Apartments, Economy, Housing, News, Trends, Uncategorized, Wealth 1 Comment ↓ 
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
― Flannery O’Connor
This blog post is pretty much just for me as insurance is not a very exciting topic but has great importance to all property owners,
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International travel calls so this blog will be on the shorter side. It is fairly well known from research and the school of hard knocks that we are our own worst enemies when it comes to investing. Our emotions, particularly fear and greed, often lead us to buy towards the top and sell when it is closer to a bottom.
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Maybe it’s because we just had a Friday the 13th or because my home was one of the houses that had to be evacuated in the recent Orange County fires (fortunately it was not damaged) or perhaps because I recently saw an ex-CIA lawyer and analyst speaking about how successful the Russians were in subverting our democracy during the 2016 elections and how at risk we are to cyber attacks from Russia,
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