Time for a rest
“I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have, and I want to administer it intelligently.” –Ernest Hemingway I have medial epicondylitis on both elbows and only rest can heal me. I thought I could push through and…
Real Estate v. Nature
“Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.” —Leonardo da Vinci There are endless things to read, watch, learn, and understand. Sometimes it’s our choice to learn things, just for fun, and…
The Oedipus complex in society
“Our city—look around you, see with your own eyes—our ship pitches wildly, cannot lift her head from the depths, the red waves of death . . . Thebes is dying.”—Oedipus the King I didn’t watch the presidential debate, as I was prepping for my son’s graduation party. I heard about…
Narcissism is a natural parasitic process
“Parasites are not our enemies; they are reminders of our precarious place in the natural world.” —Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite Rex Last week I came across an article: America is the Narcissist of the World. Over the past few decades, extreme narcissism and other psychological disorders have proliferated in…
Digital “Glitches” and Colleges Closing
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” —Gerald R. Ford Last week, I opened my brokerage account and found one of my larger stock holdings down over 95 percent. I tried furiously to buy a…
U.S. Treasuries: From Yang to Yin
“The world consists of Yin and Yang, and understanding this is crucial for anyone seeking to navigate life’s complexities.” Life is complicated. It seems that just when we think we’ve figured something out, the game changes. In Marketland, this usually starts with recency bias: a form of cognitive reasoning that…
Is the USA becoming the former USSR?
“Old Heraclitus, who was indeed a very great sage, discovered the most marvelous of all psychological laws: the regulative function of opposites. He called it enantiodromia, a running contrariwise, by which he meant that sooner or later everything runs into its opposite.” –Carl Jung There’s nothing more fun than discovering!…
To learn, or to unlearn, that is the question
“It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Mark Twain When I went to visit my grandma as a young teenager, I remember showing off what I thought were my amazing superwoman skills. If you think I do…
On the difficult conversation we need to have…
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” —Henry David Thoreau I woke up Wednesday morning to a message in my inbox from Dr. Toby Rogers on the difficult conversation we need to have with each other. In this post,…
Japanese Yen: The canary in the gold mine
The global monetary system is a big blobby glob of sticky goo that somehow keeps on slugging along through endless waste and war. But stop what you’re doing and listen. Chirp, chirp, chirp…peep, peep, peep…chitter, chitter, twitter, twitter, TWEET! On April 30, Fortune published an article: Why Japan’s currency is…