Warren Buffett has said that people should read 500 pages a day if they want to compound knowledge at a very high rate. Along the same lines, Bill Gates reads at least one book a week to help satisfy his immense curiosity.
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Blog Archives
Tariffs & The Wisdom of Grover Cleveland
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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The Compounding of Intelligence – Is Wealth The Key?
One of the conventional narratives in our capitalist society is that the wealthy and most successful people are often the brightest and hard-working. I think what this fails to take into consideration is the nature versus nurture debate. People often think of intelligence as being innate and not very changeable.
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When One Thinks of Disruptors – FDR or Tech Titans?
When one thinks of disruptors it’s not surprising to think of modern tech titans like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Marc Benioff, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, etc. I was reading an interview with the great American writer Philip Roth in the New York Times and he referenced books that he has recently read and what triggered his interest in them.
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Trumpling on the Dollar
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Gary Carmell Posted in Economy, Interest Rates, Investing, Manufacturing, Market Bubbles, Uncategorized, Wealth 1 Comment ↓
Gary Carmell Posted in Economy, Interest Rates, Investing, Manufacturing, Market Bubbles, Uncategorized, Wealth 1 Comment ↓ 
Maybe I’m writing about the dollar because I’m traveling abroad soon so it affects my pocketbook. It could also be due to the rather shockingly overt talking down of the dollar by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in Davos.
“Obviously a weaker dollar is good for us as it relates to trade and opportunities,”
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The End of QE I, II, & III – The Fed Portfolio Reduction
The Fed’s balance sheet is comprised of approximately $2.5 trillion in Treasury securities and $1.8 trillion in mortgage backed securities. The following graph shows how its balance sheet has grown since 2009 through 2014 when it stopped its bond-buying program.
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What Will High-Income Blue Staters Do? New Tax Regime
Now that there is a new tax regime in place I thought I would discuss it one more time with some additional thoughts. It does appear that while most parts of the country will not be significantly impacted by the mortgage interest deduction being reduced to $750,000 for future home purchases,
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How Could The New Tax Laws Impact Housing?
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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Love as the Basis for Customer Service and Marriage
In this third and final post related to The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, this week I will talk about the ways that Fromm says we can learn how to master the art of love and how it can be applied to serving one’s customers.
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How to Find the Road to Concentration
“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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