Blog Archives

The Hard Truth for your Children - Build up Your Soft Skills

soft skills

There is no doubt that technological innovation has automated more tasks and this will only become more pronounced with the greater use of artificial intelligence and robotics. This has created a greater demand for workers who have “soft” skills since routine job tasks are becoming more automated or commoditized.

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Liberating our Minds - Thoughts about 9/11 and Covid-19

September 11th Covid 19

With the 20th anniversary of September 11 just having passed I felt compelled to make a reference to it in this post. What I find interesting is that after the Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked and over 3,000 people were killed on American soil,

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The 10 Second Challenge

10 second challenge

For the past 25 years or so I’ve been interested in what are the high-leverage activities and strategies one can take to improve their health outcomes. I have been particularly interested in what contributes to longevity and quality of life by lessening the chances of disease,

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An Improving Labor Market and A Fascinating Real Time Experiment

Labor Market Employment

I started getting into the flow and writing about some epiphanies I had on the tennis court that I was planning on sharing this week. And then the jobs report came out on Friday and I saw the reaction of the bond market to what appeared to be a strong report and I felt like I had to do one more chart-oriented blog.

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Keep your Eyes on the Road but Never Lose Sight of the Destination

Interest Rates Keep your Eyes on the Road

Investing has some parallels with driving. It’s important to have a destination that keeps you on course. I think of the destination as financial goals rooted in thoughtful consideration of powerful trends upon which to capitalize such that the wind can be put at your back while also being fully cognizant of what exposures you may have that can lead to a permanent loss of capital based on shorter-term issues arising.

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Sayonara Bonds

Japanese Bond Treasuries

The first quarter was incredibly ugly for bond investors, particularly those with exposure to longer-maturity ones. Bond investors were not happy as Treasuries generated the worst quarterly return since 1980.

A Bad Quarter for Bonds - Bloomberg Barclays treasury index fell 4% 1973 - 2020

So who were the big sellers of Treasuries?

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Stimulus: Should I Save or Should I Go (Spend)

Stimulus save or spend

Economic growth is projected to increase quite substantially now that the $1.9 trillion stimulus has been passed. The following chart shows that economists are forecasting the strongest growth since the Reagan years.

US gross domestic product, change from 4th quarter to 4th quarter 1970 - 2020

Not surprisingly, a lot of this projected growth is predicated on the spending of built-up savings from multiple stimulus packages that have passed and been disbursed.

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Lessons from King Lear with a Little Kurt Vonnegut Thrown In

King Lear

“I am a man more sinned against than sinning”

William Shakespeare, King Lear 

Last week’s events made me think about how important it is to understand people’s personality profiles if you are going to be relying on them.

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Feliz Covidad - My End of 2020 Rant!

“Oh what a tangled web we weave.”

-Sir Walter Scott

With 2020 in the rearview mirror, we would all love to put Covid behind us. Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t work on a calendar.

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Learning from 9/11 to Speculate on the Future of Offices

Office air quality

Before action is taken it first must manifest as a thought, however fleeting. And, if actions are part of a more strategic thought process seeking to produce longer-term results, then thoughts are almost always translated into speech and/or writing in order to communicate the thinking and desired outcomes to others who may be necessary or valuable to help bring the desired outcome(s) about.

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