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Jason Kottke — Twenty Years of kottke.org — Jason Kottke — On Margins — 005
Feb 28, 2021Tap to summarizeShow Notes & Links kottke.org Jason appearing on Halt and Catch Fire kottke.org — 10 years old kottke.org — 20 years of gratitude and acknowledgements kottke.org — twenty Nieman Labs: How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 Noticing — the kottke.org newsletter written by Tim Carmondy kottke.org memberships Full Transcript Craig Mod: You’re listening to On Margins. I’m Craig Mod, and this is Episode Five. Kottke.org is a website. It is not an app. It is not a product. It is simply a static website updated daily, running some rickety, old blogging software. As of March 2018, it’s been consistently updated for 20 years. It is largely the product of a single mind: Jason Kottke. Kottke.org has shaped the way many of us have thought about news, blogging, and linking. Jason has built his entire career around the power of hypertext. That is, he has pointed to things and added commentary in over 26,000 posts. A simple gesture, and today, an obvious one, but one that was only possible because of how the Web was constructed. Everything on the web sits side-by-side as equal class citizens. A guy in a bedroom in the middle of nowhere can stand toe-to-toe with global news agencies, and through a consistency of tone, hopefulness, and sharp eye, kottke.org has stood the test of time. It’s one of the largest, longest-running single proprietor websites online. Now, not all books are bound and not all books need be printed on paper. In my estimation, kottke.org is as much a book, that is, a distillation of a singular curious point of view as any thick nonfiction tome published today. Jason was kind enough to make time to chat with me about this and more on today’s episode. I hope you enjoy. Craig: Jason, thank you for being here today. Jason Kottke: Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me, Craig. Craig: If you were to go back in time and thank one person or one institution that has allowed you to do what you’re doing today, who would that be? Jason: I think there’s a few contenders. I grew up on a farm in a small town in rural Wisconsin. This was the ’80s and early ’90s, and so I was very culturally sheltered. I didn’t know a whole lot about what was going on in the wider world. I did well at school and I got a scholarship to a college in Iowa called Coe College, C-O-E. Coe College. I went, and college for me was this eye-opening experience, like it is for a lot of people, but I think for me, it was like I discovered that I was always a super curious kid and super interested in science and learning. I actually liked school. I liked the learning part of school. I hated the social part of school, but the learning part of school was great. When I got to college, it was like, holy shit, there are people here who take that part of school seriously – because they’re curious about it, because they can’t help it. I learned that that I am one of those people that I just can’t help being interested in all sorts of different things. College for me was like this amazing thing. Didn’t know what I was going to major in when I got there, but after a year or two, I decided I was going to major in physics. I had this advisor. His name was Dr. Feller. He was the best teacher, hands down, I’ve ever had in my entire life. He would do this amazing thing. I didn’t know this right away, but when I got to be a junior and senior, I noticed this more and more. In the class, he would teach simultaneously to every level in the class, no matter if you knew exactly what was going on with everything, or if you were really struggling, or anywhere in between. I don’t know how he did it. Like I still don’t know how he did it. He was so generous with his time and his energy. He had this infectious energy that just propelled everyone forward. I just took so much from that experience and from having him as an advisor, and as a mentor, and as a friend really. He became a friend. I think I owe him a lot in how I approach the world, and how I approach work, and in just thinking of the world as this endless bounty of things to know. Craig: Is he still around? Jason: He still is, yeah. I think this is his last year teaching. He’s going to transition into a peer research role, working with students on research. Every five years, the physics department has a reunion. This year, coming up is the reunion, and I’ve already – I haven’t bought my tickets, but I will soon. I am definitely attending. Craig: Have you ever said, hey, by the way, a big part of what I’m doing today was influenced by having you as an archetype in my life? Have you ever explicitly told him that? Jason: I haven’t, but I think I’m going to make a point of it this time around. Craig: I only bring that up because I had two people in my childhood who enabled me to get access to a kind of thinking similar to what you described – a kind of thinking, a kind of curiosity. There was one person who literally gave me access to his house, because he had a computer and we couldn’t afford one. When you’re young, you don’t think about death. You don’t think about gratitude as much as you should, at least I didn’t. Maybe that’s a failure of my upbringing or me as a child or whatever. I never really thanked him. I never thanked him. In fact, there was this one day he got a new computer and I bought his old computer and that was it. I remember five years ago going, “Shit, I need to email Tom.” I went to look and he had passed away from a heart attack a few years before. You just go, “Fuck.” It’s a really important thing to remember to do. A lot of times, we think people know that they have had a profound impact on us, but the reality is is that they don’t. I think a lot of people have tremendous influence, positive influence on folks they come in contact with, students, and they never really know how much of an impact they’ve had until it’s explicitly said. For me, that’s become an important principle of moving through the world. That’s great, though. You’re lucky. It’s amazing how powerful just one good person in your life can be. Jason: Yeah, I feel lucky to have crossed paths with him and to have been so influenced by him. I think a lot of his students feel like that. I think he’s far and away the most popular/the most respected teacher that school has ever had in a lot of ways. Super guy. Craig: You have 20 years built up on the site. Have you done a calculation of how many words that is? Jason: I did a few years ago and I can’t remember what it was. It’s several books worth of stuff. If I didn’t do this and I wrote books instead, I would have 10, 12 books under my name right now. It’s a lot. [laughs] Craig: It’s a ton. It’s crazy. To have one place where you consistently put 20 years of thinking and focus into. Jason: I haven’t done a lot of writing elsewhere. I’ve written one or two things for “Wired,” I think. I did a thing for “Meg Magazine.” I did something for Nieman Lab. That was about it. Everything else is on kottke.org. Craig: I was going to ask about the .org bit. It feels natural. It feels like if it was kottke.com…Kottke.com, even just saying it feels incorrect. It feels wrong. There’s no .com happening in Kottkeland. That felt quite insightful in 1998, to pick a .org. Do you remember, was kottke.com taken? Jason: Oh, yeah. I would have had .com, but it was taken so I had to take .org. It wasn’t any sort of stylistic or editorial choice. It was just like, “OK, I’m going to go with .org.” In the early days, only organizations and non-profits could have .org domains. When I got .org, everyone was like, “I don’t understand. Are you an…?” It was like this, “Can you really have this?” I’m like, “Well, yeah. Anybody can register anything. You can register a .net even though you’re not a network.” Craig: This is back when TLDs had meaning. Today, nothing matters. Nothing is real. Jason: Exactly. I tweeted the other day that I was looking for a guest editor for an upcoming week. Somebody sent me an email about it. “Oh, I’m a writer here, here, and here. Here’s my personal URL.” It was beyonce.horse. That’s a URL now, a fucking great URL, but it was kind of crazy. Craig: Oh my God. You should hire that creature. Jason: I looked at it and I was like, “Holy shit. Beyonce.horse? This is a big green check mark in my estimation.” We’ll see. Craig: I like that we’re at beyonce.horse period of the Internet because it’s all invented. We get so precious about this stuff. This is the proper way to do this, or that, or whatever. This is all just invented stuff, from some bearded dudes in the ’60s who were just saying, “Let’s use .com. We’re going to do HTTP://. That makes sense. That’s a good way of doing it. That’s a very readable way to define the protocol.” Jason: And then culture took over. Culture is things like, “I’m going to do beyonce.horse.” Craig: Right, because it’s like it doesn’t matter. Who’s typing in URLs anymore anyway? I feel like the .org, for you, as an ethos, intentional or not. It feels so fitting because it feels like kottke.org is an organization. It’s a singular voice. It is a collection of careful thinking, hopeful thinking. That’s what I want in my organizations in the world, my cultural organizations, is consideration and hope and curiosity. It feels very, very fitting. Have you ever taken the kottke.org content and done anything else with it? Has it ever manifested in any other way besides kottke.org on the web? Jason: No, it hasn’t. I thought about putting it on the Kindle or turning it into an actual book. I was talking to some friends a few years ago about making an iPad sort of magazine thing out of it where you would take articles from the website around certain topics and repackage them together into these magazine issues. I don’t know. Nothing ever came of that. It’s still an idea that’s out there. There are lots of different things I could do. Craig: Has anyone approached you about acquiring the archive? Jas...
Transcribe →Daily Prayer (Extended Version) | Ransomed Heart
Jan 22, 2019Tap to summarize[Why a long version? Over the years we have come to learn a great deal about prayer and spiritual warfare. Frankly, the prayers of our youth have not proved sufficient for the trials of a more mature believer advancing the Kingdom of God. This longer version reflects the kind of prayer needed in times of intense ministry or times of great pressure and attack. Frankly, it just has more firepower. Try it—you’ll see.] My dear Lord Jesus, I come to you now to be restored in you, renewed in you, to receive from you all the grace and mercy I so desperately need this day. I honor you as my Sovereign, and I surrender every aspect and dimension of my life totally and completely to you. I give to you my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I cover myself with your blood—my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I ask your Holy Spirit to restore me in you, renew me in you, and lead this time of prayer. In all that I now pray, I stand in absolute agreement with your Spirit and with my intercessors and allies, by your Spirit and by your Spirit alone. Dearest God, holy and victorious Trinity, you alone are worthy of all my worship, my heart’s devotion, all my praise, all my trust, and all the glory of my life. I love you, I worship you, I give myself over to you in my heart’s search for life. You alone are Life, and you have become my life. I renounce all other gods, every idol, and I give to you the place in my heart and in my life that you truly deserve. This is all about you, God, and not about me; you are the Hero of this story, and I belong to you. I ask your forgiveness for my every sin. I renounce my sins. I ask you to search me and know me and reveal to me where you are working in my life and grant to me the grace of your healing, deliverance, your holiness, and a deep and true repentance. Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me and choosing me before you made the world. You are my true Father—my creator, redeemer, sustainer, and the true end of all things, including my life. I love you, I trust you, I worship you. I give myself over to you, Father, to be one with you in everything as Jesus is one with you. Thank you for proving your love by sending Jesus; I receive him and all his life and all his work which you ordained for me. Thank you for including me in Christ, for forgiving me my sins, for granting me his righteousness, for making me complete in him. Thank you for making me alive with Christ, raising me with him, seating me with him at your right hand, establishing me in his authority, and anointing me with your love, your Spirit, and your kingdom. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I bring the life and work of the Lord Jesus Christ over my life today, over my home, my family, my household, throughout my kingdom and domain. Jesus, thank you for coming to ransom me with your own life. I love you, I worship you, I give myself over to you to be one with you in all things—spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, and will. I sincerely receive all the work and triumph in your cross, death, blood, and sacrifice, through which my every sin is atoned for, I am ransomed and delivered from the kingdom of darkness and transferred to your kingdom, my sin nature is removed, my heart is circumcised unto God, and every claim being made against me is disarmed this day. I now take my place in your cross and death, dying with you to sin, to my flesh, to this world, to the evil one and his kingdom. I take up the cross and crucify my flesh with all its pride, arrogance, unbelief, and idolatry [and anything else you are currently struggling with]. I put off the old man. Apply to me all the work in your cross, death, blood, and sacrifice. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I bring the blood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ over my life today, over my home, my family, my household, my vehicles, finances, over all my kingdom and domain. I bring the cross, death, blood, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ against Satan, against his kingdom, against every foul and unclean spirit, every foul power and black art, against every witch, and against every human being and their spirit, their warfare and household. I bring the cross, death, blood, and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ to the borders of my kingdom and domain, and I stake it there in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my Life, and I receive all the work and triumph in your resurrection, through which you have conquered sin, death, judgment, and the evil one. Death has no power over you, nor does any foul thing. And I have been raised with you to a new life, to live your life—dead to sin and alive to God. I take my place now in your resurrection and in your life, and I give my life to you to live your life. I am saved by your life. I reign in life through your life. I receive your hope, love, faith, joy, your goodness, trueness, wisdom, power, and strength. Apply to me all the work and triumph in your resurrection; I receive it with thanks and I give it total claim to my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I bring the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ over my life today, over my home, my family, my household, my vehicles, finances, over all my kingdom and domain. I bring the resurrection and the empty tomb of Jesus Christ against Satan, against his kingdom, against every foul and unclean spirit, every foul power and black art, against every witch, and against every human being and their spirit, their warfare, and household. I bring the resurrection and the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ to the borders of my kingdom and domain, and I stake it there in Jesus’ name. Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my authority, rule, and dominion, my everlasting victory against Satan and his kingdom, and my ability to bring your Kingdom at all times and in every way. I receive all the work and triumph in your ascension, through which Satan has been judged and cast down, and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you. All authority in the heavens and on this earth has been given to you, Jesus, and you are worthy to receive all glory and honor, power and dominion, now and forever. I take my place now in your authority and in your throne, through which I have been raised with you to the right hand of the Father and established in your authority. I give myself to you, to reign with you always. Apply to me all the work and triumph in your authority and your throne; I receive it with thanks, and I give it total claim to my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I now bring the authority, rule, and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ over my life today, over my home, my family, my household, my vehicles, finances, over all my kingdom and domain. I now bring the authority, rule, and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fullness of the work of Christ against Satan, against his kingdom, against every foul and unclean spirit—every ruler, power, authority, and spiritual force of wickedness, their every weapon, claim, and device. [At this point, I specifically name all foul and unclean spirits that I know have been attacking me, such as fear, doubt, accident, injury, death, the religious spirit, pride, arrogance, etc.] I send all foul and unclean spirits bound to the throne of Christ, together with every back-up and replacement, every weapon, claim, and device—by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his name. I command the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the heads of those that refuse to obey, and I send them to judgment, by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his name. I now bring the authority, rule, and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fullness of the work of Christ against every foul power and black art—every hex, vex, and incantation, every spell, weave, web, veil, shroud, charm, and snare; against every ritual, sacrifice, and device; against every vow, dedication, and sacrifice, every word, judgment, and curse—written, spoken, unspoken, or transferred to me. I command them disarmed and broken by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his name. I now bring the authority, rule, and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fullness of the work of Christ against every witch, cult, and coven, every channel of black arts to me. I cut them off in the name of the Lord; I send the glory of God to them to turn them in Jesus’ name. I now bring the authority, rule, and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fullness of the work of Christ between me and every human being—their spirit, soul, body, their sin, warfare, and their household. I bring the full work of Christ between me and [now I name people I’ve counseled or prayed for, family members, folks in crisis looking to me, etc.]. I command their human spirits bound back to their bodies and their warfare bound to the throne of Christ in their life. I bring the full work of Christ between me and my household and all people, in the authority of Jesus Christ and in his name. Holy Spirit, thank you for coming. I love you, I worship you, I trust you. I honor you as Lord. I receive all the work and triumph in Pentecost, through which you have come, you have clothed me with power from on high, sealed me in Christ, become my union with the Father and the Son, the Spirit of truth in me, the life of God in me, my counselor, comforter, strength, and guide. I honor you as Lord, and I fully give to you every aspect and dimension of my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will—to be filled with you, to walk in step with you in all things. Fill me afresh, Holy Spirit. Restore my union with the Father and the Son. Lead me into all truth, anoint me for all of my life and walk and calling, and lead me deeper into Jesus today. I receive you with thanks, and I give ...
Transcribe →click here
Apr 11, 2018Tap to summarizeEpisode #98: “We’ve Got Good Growth with Low Inflation and that’s a Very Good Environment for Stocks and Okay Environment for Bonds” Guest: Dr. Ed Yardeni. Ed was on Wall Street for 25 years as the Chief Economist of EF Hutton, Prudential Securities, and CJ Lawrence. He was also the Chief Investment Strategist of Deutsche Bank Securities. Regarded as one of the leading independent investment strategists in the business, Ed appears frequently on CNBC and is widely quoted in the financial press. He worked at the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC and in New York City, as well as the US Treasury. He is the author of Predicting the Markets. Date Recorded: 3/14/18 Run-Time: 51:34 To listen to Episode #98 on iTunes, click here To listen to Episode #98 on Stitcher, click here To listen to Episode #98 on Pocket Casts, click here To listen to Episode #98 on Google Play, click here To stream Episode #98, click here Comments or suggestions? Email us [email protected] or call us to leave a voicemail at 323 834 9159 Interested in sponsoring an episode? Email Jeff at [email protected] Summary: In Episode 98, we welcome a true market veteran, Dr. Ed Yardeni. The episode starts with a fun story about Ed’s school days, studying off Janet Yellen’s notes in James Tobin’s class. But Meb soon brings up Ed’s new book, Predicting the Markets. In it, he writes that if books had theme songs, the appropriate song for his would be the 80s hit, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Ed explains this is because, when looking back over the past 40 years, the market has been extraordinarily bullish as a whole. There were plenty of reason to worry along the way, but all in all, the market rewarded brave investors. This eventually leads into a conversation about valuations today that appear somewhat grim, and what Ed’s thoughts are looking forward. Ed tells us it’s okay to be bearish, but don’t forget to get back into the market. He says, “history shows the smartest thing to do is just to invest over the years as you’re getting old, keep putting more money into the markets…recognizing that sometimes you’re going to get bargains and sometimes you’re not.” The conversation drifts toward making macro predictions and the effect of Washington DC on the market. Ed tells us we’re overwhelmed with information and news, which is all the more reason to try to find the fundamental truth that’s out there. Washington doesn’t matter as much as Washington likes to think it matters. Ed gives us more of his thoughts on the market response to Obama, Trump, and the Fed, as well as what he believes actually creates jobs. The conversation turns toward bonds, with Meb asking why bond movements can be challenging to predict. Ed points toward inflation, taking us back to the 50s to discuss bond yields and how they’ve moved in the years since. He brings in nominal GDP and central bankers into the mix. A conversation about negative yielding sovereigns brings various central bankers into the spotlight. Ed walks us through a look back at some of the effects of Fed involvement. He has some interesting thoughts on what the Fed does well – and not so well. This is a great show, melding market history, implementable market wisdom, and Ed’s fascinating career. There’s way more, including where Ed sees the biggest changes coming in technology, and how it will affect markets… Ed’s favorite three indicators… which period over Ed’s 40-year career stands out the most… Ed’s movie reviews… and of course, his most memorable trade. What are the details? Find out in Episode 98. Links from the Episode: 00:50 (First question) – Introduction and Ed’s background including how he learned off Janet Yellen’s classroom notes 1:24 – Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography – Yardeni 2:35 – Why the theme song to his new book is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” 4:38 – Idea of “current analysis” 6:24 – Ed’s view on current stock market valuations 6:58 – Ed’s blog 11:21 – What goes into making big macro predictions/forecasts about the market 12:20 – Washington’s impact, or lack thereof, on the markets 16:30 – Why bond movements are so challenging to predict 20:36 – Ed’s take on negative yielding sovereign bonds 23:16 – Ed’s view on the evolution of the Fed over the last few years and where it could go moving forward 27:37 – Big changes we’ll see in technology and how it will impact markets 32:13 – Ed’s favorite three indicators; CRB Raw Industrial Spot Price Index 35:26 – Boom/Bust Barometer 36:15 – Fundamental Stock Market Index 37:38 – Blue Angels economic indicator 41:16 – Any particularly memorable period of time that stands out to Ed 43:21 – What’s the new exciting project Ed is working on 45:55 – Ed’s most memorable investment 48:24 – A couple high rated movies from the past year 49:50 – 2018 Movie Reviews 50:20 – Connect with Ed – his new book, his website, and his blog Transcript of Episode 98: Welcome Message: Welcome to The Meb Faber Show, where the focus is on helping you grow and preserve your wealth. Join us as we discuss the craft of investing and uncover new and profitable ideas, all to help you grow wealthier and wiser. Better investing starts here. Disclaimer: Meb Faber is the co-founder and chief investment officer at Cambria Investment Management. Due to industry regulations, he will not discuss any of Cambria’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cambria Investment Management or its affiliates. For more information, visit cambriainvestments.com. Meb: Welcome, podcast listeners. Today we have an awesome show for you with one of the smartest guys in the biz. He was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He’s also held positions with Oak Associates, Prudential Group, Deutsche Bank. You’ve seen his writing in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Barron’s. He’s also got out a great new book which we’ll talk about today, and he’s now president of his own independent global investment strategy research group. Welcome to the show, Dr. Ed Yardeni. Ed: Thank you very much. Meb: Thanks so much for joining. This is going to be a lot of fun. I’d love to go back in time and start a little bit with your background. I polished off your new autobiography, and I thought there’s no better place to start than, you know, back in school. And I wanted to hear how you really started out studying off Janet Yellen’s notes. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. Ed: Sure. I graduated from Yale in the Economics Department with a Ph.D. back in the late ’70s, and 6 years before that, Fed chair Janet Yellen had graduated in the same programme, and we both had Professor James Tobin as the chair of our dissertation committees. So obviously I didn’t meet Janet at the time but I did read her Tobin notes. You know how in school there always seems to be one kid sitting in the front of the class that’s just taking the copious notes that thinks that the teacher or the professor is the most amazing teacher there ever was? Well, that must have been Janet with Tobin because she took his meticulous notes, and they were subsequently xeroxed and passed along from generation to generation. So six years later, I studied the Tobin notes, which helped a lot because Tobin was a very demanding and difficult teacher. Meb: Awesome. I love it. You know, the cool thing about this book, so the new book out is called “Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography,” is not only does it take you through kind of your framework and how you think about markets, but also gives kinda readers a history of markets. So you’ll see names referenced that a lot of you will be familiar with like Paul Volcker, Louis Bacon, Leon Cooperman. But one of the things you had in the intro said if books came with a theme song, yours would be “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Maybe you can explain to our listeners what you mean by that. Ed: At the beginning of my book I said it’s very unusual to consider or think that a book should have a theme song, but if I had to pick one, it would be “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Basically, if I look back over the past 40 years, I recall that in the late ’70s, the Dow was 1,000 and today it’s 25,000. My only regret is that, you know, I didn’t have a lot of money back then to put in the market. And I suspect if I did and I put it in the market, I probably would have gotten swung around and jumped in and out like a lot of people do. But the basic trend of the stock market has been extraordinarily bullish, and along the way, investors certainly had plenty of reasons to worry that things were gonna end badly. And they did a couple of times. We had some pretty nasty recessions and bear markets back in 2008. It was a really ugly one. It really got to the point where a lot of people were wondering what they were gonna do in their next career. I guess my next career was gonna be a movie reviewer, as I pointed out in the book. But all in all, the market continued to do very well. And the same thing can be said for the bond market. Bond yields were over 10% when I started my career and now they’re down to about 2%, 2.5%. So we’ve had two extraordinary bull markets in stocks and in bonds, and along the way, they’ve been plenty of opportunities to worry, and if instead we’d all been kind of singing that song, maybe we would have stayed in and been happier. Meb: It’s funny you say that because I was in a car ride today with a friend and he mentioned…we were talking about markets and he says, “You know, there’s just so much uncertainty.” I kind of laughed because I said, “When has there been a time in our lifetimes when there’s been no uncertainty,” right? Ed: Right. Meb: It’s like the constant worry gives you an easy excuse not to participate. So let’s stay broad for a minute and then we’ll kind of drill down a little more into some markets and ideas. But talk to me ...
Transcribe →click here
Feb 8, 2018Tap to summarizeEpisode #92: “There Are Just A Few Things You Really Need to Know About Investing, and They Don’t Ever Change” Guest: Andrew Tobias. Andrew is a Harvard grad who went on to write for New York Magazine, covering the world of finance. For several years he had a column in Time and frequently appeared in Parade. His work has also appeared in such places as The New York Times Sunday Magazine and on the cover of Harvard Magazine. His twelve books include three New York Times best-sellers, one of which is The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, with more than one million copies in print. He has received the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, Harvard Magazine’s Smith-Weld Prize, GLSEN’s first Valedictorian Award, and the Consumer Federation of America Media Service Award. Date Recorded: 1/30/18 Run-Time: 51:37 To listen to Episode #92 on iTunes, click here To listen to Episode #92 on Stitcher, click here To listen to Episode #92 on Pocket Casts, click here To listen to Episode #92 on Google Play, click here To stream Episode #92, click here Comments or suggestions? Email us [email protected] or call us to leave a voicemail at 323 834 9159 Interested in sponsoring an episode? Email Jeff at [email protected] Summary: In Episode 92, we welcome investor, author, and activist, Andrew Tobias. Meb starts by asking Andy about his background and introduction to investing. Andy gives us his origin story, with highlights including collecting stamps, an early introduction to the stock market, a trip behind the Iron Curtain which led to a brief dalliance with Communism, then his becoming a paper millionaire due to some creative accounting (then those monies disappearing). It’s a fascinating look back. Next, Meb recalls a survey we conducted some quarters ago, soliciting readers’ favorite investing books of all time. Andy’s book from 1978, The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, turned out to be high on that list. Meb asks Andy to explain the thesis of the original book, and whether there have been any significant changes in subsequent editions. Andy tells us “There are just a few things you really need to know about investing, and they don’t ever change. The problem is it’s hard to get people to really grab onto them.” He goes on to say that investing isn’t like cooking or chess, where the more you read/learn, the better. Instead, with investing, the more you read, the more you can get yourself into trouble. He gives us an example using commodity speculating. Given that so much about investing remains constant, Andy’s revisions in subsequent editions haven’t been too substantial. Meb pushes a bit more, asking if there’s any subject about which Andy has changed his mind since the original publication. Andy tells us he’s become a bigger fan of special opportunity investing. Most people aren’t looking for this type of thing. So, Andy discusses putting 80% of your portfolio into inexpensive index funds, but spreading the remaining 20% over 5-6 really interesting, exciting speculations. Most will go to $0, but maybe you hit with one or two, and those proceeds offset the losses and more. Plus, this satisfies the need to have something more exciting to do with your money. Meb agrees with this idea, and asks about Andy’s speculative process – is it rooted in quant or is there a discretionary component? Andy answers by giving us an example with Support.com. Next, the guys discuss valuations, comparing where we are now to where we were back in the early ‘80s. It seems we’re flip-flopped a bit in terms of interest rates and equity valuations. This segues into private investing, with Andy telling us about how came to own farmland. Turned out to be a great investment, buying at $500 an acre and selling years later at $3K an acre. Meb agrees farmland is a great asset class, but it’s hard to allocate toward. This dovetails into a few other private investments in which Andy has participated, most notably “Honest Tea,” which was purchased by Coca Cola, as well as a small, musical comedy, which went on to play on multiple continents over many years. The guys bounce around a bit here, discussing the need to spread your bets in private market investing… lockups… the benefit of illiquidity… binary thinking… Andy’s firsthand experience with selling way too early… There’s plenty more in this episode, including Andy’s concerns for our existential future, his most memorable trade, and finally, a product he endorses which might help tackle dementia and improve reflexes. Apparently, Tom Brady swears by it. What are the details? Find out in Episode 92. Links from the Episode: 00:50 – Introduction to Andy 1:12 – The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need – Tobias 1:30 – Impressions on Costa Rica 2:48 – Andy’s earliest experience in investing 5:55 – What hasn’t changed in investing since Andrew’s first book 6:03 – Meb’s survey on the best investing book 11:44 – What has changed in investing 12:20 – A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing – Malkiel 16:13 – Process for picking stocks 21:06 – What are Andrew’s thoughts about investing in a world with sky-high valuations 24:06 – Investing in farmland 28:58 – Andrew’s process when it comes to private investing 37:02 – Challenges in finding the right bet in private investing 37:08 – Longboard study – “The Capitalism Distribution” 43:15 – What has Andrew’s brain occupied today 43:20 – Andrew’s blog 46:30 – What has been Andrew’s most memorable investment/trade 47:00 – Brain HQ 51:03 – Ways to keep up with Andrew – his website Transcript of Episode 92: Welcome Message: Welcome to “The Meb Faber Show,” where the focus is on helping you grow and preserve your wealth. Join us as we discuss the craft of investing and uncover new and profitable ideas, all to help you grow wealthier and wiser. Better investing starts here. Disclaimer: Meb Faber is the co-founder and chief investment officer at Cambria Investment Management. Due to industry regulations, he will not discuss any of Cambria’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cambria Investment Management or its affiliates. For more information, visit cambriainvestments.com. Meb: Welcome, podcast listeners. Today we have a fantastic show for you with one of our most fascinating guests. He’s kind of a real-world most interesting man, a prolific writer. You’ve seen his stuff in “New York Magazine,” “Esquire,” “The New York Times.” He’s written a dozen books, including a bunch of The New York Times Best Sellers, including one of my favourite books, “The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need,” which has sold more than a million copies. He’s been a part of all sorts of other stuff, anti-smoking campaigns in Russia, insurance reform in the U.S. He’s our only guest that’s appeared on Letterman, Johnny Carson, and Oprah. We couldn’t be happier to have him here today. Welcome, Andy Tobias. Andy: Well, thank you very much. Good to be with you. Meb: Andy, thanks so much for taking the time out. You mentioned briefly that you’re getting ready to go to Costa Rica, and I was going to say I had one of the scariest days of my life in Costa Rica where when I graduated from university was trying to surf in Dominical, and I’m a terrible surfer, as our podcast listeners know, and my leash broke. I learnt a lot of lessons that day, never get in way over your head. So thank you for taking the time before you’re heading down there. Do you spend much time in Costa Rica in general? Andy: No. I grew up in Manhattan, and so my general philosophy is, “If it’s not paved, it’s not safe.” So where there are bugs, and nature, and things, I get nervous, so things like zip-lining and surfing, which I totally get would be wonderful if I were not such a wuss. I had a nice dinner in Dominical, but, no, Costa Rica is a wonderful country, but, as you know, it’s one of the few without any army. It’s part of their constitution, and they are a peaceful, and literate, and wonderful people. But, no, I’m not going to be trekking to waterfalls, and over high bridges, and all that kind of stuff. Meb: “Pura vita,” as the locals will say, and, podcast listeners, the biggest takeaway from this podcast is, “Get some Lizano sauce.” It’s Costa Rican sauce. It’s the best thing on the planet. All right, let’s get to…we’ve got so much that we’re going to talk about today, things I’d love to get into. You’ve got such a fascinating background across a lot of fields, but let’s start with investing. And let’s go back in time to your childhood. I remember, much like for many investors, a lot of formative experiences growing up, whether it’s your parents or it’s starting learning to invest. Tell me a little bit about setting the stage for how you originally started thinking about investing. I know you talked in one of your books or interviews about investing in maybe stamps or first-issued stamps, something or other, as a first experience. Maybe talk to us a little bit about that before we get into some other topics. Andy: Well, I guess I’m sort of a collector. I’m competitive. I like to keep score. When I was five, my folks gave me $5 for my birthday, and when I was six, they gave me $6, and when I was seven, they gave me $7, and I sort of saw what was going on here. I tried to… You can’t save a whole lot of money from $5, but I like numbers, and I like to see them grow. So when I was about 10 and my brother was 14, our Uncle Lou, who was kind of our rich uncle, he gave each of us, I don’t remember what, but I think 10 shares of General Dynamics, and 10 shares of General Motors, and 100 of Alcoa or something. We would look at the stock pages every day, and nothing ever happened, you know. It would go up an eighth or a quarter, down an eighth or a quarter, back when stocks were quoted in fractions...
Transcribe →The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From Marriage - Freakonomics Freakonomics
Jul 17, 2017Tap to summarizeIn 1960, 5% of kids were born to unmarried mothers. Today: 40%. (Photo: Raissa Viza / Flickr) Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From Marriage.” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.) Over 40 percent of U.S. births are to unmarried mothers, and the numbers are especially high among the less-educated. Why? One argument is that the decline in good manufacturing jobs led to a decline in “marriageable” men. Surely the fracking boom reversed that trend, right? Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. And you’ll find credits for the music in the episode noted within the transcript. * * * Stephen J. DUBNER: As an economist, why are you interested in things like marriage and fertility? Things like that. Melissa KEARNEY: I’m really interested in issues of poverty, U.S. poverty in particular. It turns out that poverty and family structure are very intertwined in this country. If you’re thinking about the economic well-being of children in particular, it’s really hard not to be interested in questions of family structure. That’s Melissa Kearney. KEARNEY: And I’m a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. We’ve spoken with Kearney before. For an episode called “Is America Ready for a No-Lose Lottery?” KEARNEY in a clip from a Freakonomics Radio episode: In fact, a recent national survey of a thousand adults, one in five American adults said their greatest chance of accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars was through the lottery. That number jumps to 40 percent for folks making less than $25,000 a year. And we spoke with her for an episode called “Does Early Education Come Way Too Late?” KEARNEY in a clip from a Freakonomics Radio episode: We find that kids who were preschool age in places where they could watch Sesame Street were 14 percent less likely to fall behind when they got to elementary school. KEARNEY: In 1960, 5 percent of births in the U.S. were to unmarried mothers. Okay, got that? Five percent of births in the U.S. were to unmarried mothers in 1960. Fast forward now — to 2014. KEARNEY: In 2014, over 40 percent of births in the U.S. were to unmarried mothers. So first of all … wow! Anything that spikes from 5 percent to 40 percent is a big change. But when you’re talking about something as elemental as family structure — what does that mean? KEARNEY: The kids who are being born to less-educated, single moms are falling farther and farther behind. That probably doesn’t surprise you. Decades of social-science research have confirmed this sad fact. But what may surprise you — it certainly surprised Melissa Kearney — was what some fascinating new data told her about marriage and fertility. She was pretty sure it would confirm a hunch she had. She was pretty sure it would offer some good news. KEARNEY: And in fact the data showed the opposite. * * * The link between family structure and poverty is something that academic researchers like Melissa Kearney have known about for a long time. KEARNEY: It’s really hard for researchers to establish the causal effect of family structure or marriage on kids’ outcomes, of course, because we don’t randomly assign kids to married or unmarried parents. But there’s a lot of research that works really hard to isolate factors. That research consistently shows that kids who live with two married parents have lower rates of poverty, have higher cognitive test scores in childhood, have fewer behavioral problems. They seem to have better health outcomes. They’re less likely to live in poverty when they’re 25. They’re more likely to complete college and they’re less likely to become young, unmarried parents themselves. DUBNER: What is your marital and maternal status? KEARNEY: I am a married mother of three. But that does not make me a biased researcher. DUBNER: You’re sure? You’re sure you’re not shaming everybody else by imposing your social norms? KEARNEY: That’s completely unfair! I am not saying that anybody should get married who doesn’t want to get married. What I’m saying is that we see in the data that kids who are born to married mothers have better short-term and long-term outcomes. These days, roughly 4 million babies are born each year in the U.S. That’s a fertility rate of 62 babies for every 1,000 women of what’s called prime childbearing age — 15 to 44. If you go back 60 years, to the Baby Boom —well, it’s called that for a reason. The rate of childbearing was nearly double. So that’s one big change in the fertility picture. Another one, as Kearney noted earlier: Whites have historically had low rates of unmarried births, but that is changing.(Photo: OakleyOriginals / Flickr) KEARNEY: In 1960, 5 percent of births in the U.S. were to unmarried mothers. In 2014, over 40 percent of births in the U.S. were unmarried mothers. This is really a dramatic increase. And if you’re convinced, as Kearney is, that kids in unmarried households have worse outcomes — well, this is bad news. KEARNEY: The 40 percent masks really high rates in particular groups. 71 percent of births to African-American mothers now are outside of marriage. 71 percent of births to women under the age of 25 are outside of marriage. The concern about African-American kids in single-parent homes has been around for a long time. Daniel Patrick MOYNIHAN in a clip from CBS Reports: It’s not a matter of a bad situation that doesn’t improve but rather a bad situation that worsens. That’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a sociologist-turned-politician who became a longtime Democratic senator from New York. But before that, in the 1960s, he worked in the Labor Department, where he co-wrote a report that came to be known as the Moynihan Report. Its official name — using the nomenclature of the time — was The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. MOYNIHAN in a clip from CBS Reports: About a quarter of Negro families are headed by women. The divorce rate is two-and-a-half times what it is — and the number of fatherless children keeps growing. Andrew CHERLIN: Moynihan’s argument was that children do better if there’s a father in the home. That’s Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins. CHERLIN: He saw a rise in single parenthood, in children living without fathers in the home. He saw that the rise was bigger among African-Americans and he focused on them. MOYNIHAN in a clip from CBS Reports: How do you learn how to behave? From your father, your mother, your older sisters, maybe, and the people around you. Well, supposing there is no father, where children are just brought up without any of that support which a family gives him. The report, as you can imagine, was controversial. Moynihan was clear that racism was a significant factor. And that the lack of good jobs was a big problem: MOYNIHAN: We’ve got to get men to work. A man can’t run his family if he doesn’t have a job. It just starts there. Is there any secret to that? Do you have to have sociologists tell this country that? But Moynihan argued that it wasn’t all about the economics. As he wrote: “The fundamental problem … is that of family structure. The evidence — not final, but powerfully persuasive — is that the Negro family in urban ghettos is crumbling. … So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself.” CHERLIN: But here’s the difference. Andrew Cherlin again. CHERLIN: Back in Moynihan’s day, this was an issue relating to poor people and African-Americans. The issue, Cherlin means, of single-parent families. CHERLIN: It’s still the case that there are lots of such families. If you think of the stereotypical unmarried mother in 1965, you might think of an unmarried teenager living with her mother, who’d likely be from a minority group. If you think of the typical unmarried mother today, she’s white, she’s in her 20s and she’s probably living with the guy who’s the father of the children. That’s the big change that we’ve seen, that huge shift in the middle. The rate of unmarried births to non-Hispanic white women is nearly 30 percent now — triple what it was in 1980. So that is a big shift. But as Melissa Kearney points out, the most powerful predictor of single motherhood is education level. KEARNEY: Fewer than 10 percent of births to women with a college degree are outside marriage as compared to roughly 60 percent of births to women with a high-school degree or with less than a high-school degree. This surge in unmarried births among low-education women seems to present a double-whammy. Number one: these kids are likely born into a household with one income at most. And number two: since low-education moms tend to have low incomes, that means fewer resources. No one, of course, is looking to beat up on low-income, single-parent families. It’s also considered bad form, at least in some circles, to prescribe marriage as a solution. Melissa Kearney gets that. But she also gets that the so-called “marriage premium” is legit. KEARNEY: I am perfectly comfortable saying that it looks like being born to two, or living with two married parents is beneficial for kids. I know a lot of academics, they don’t want to say that, right? Because it sounds really socially conservative and preachy. But what’s really interesting is if you think of how higher-educated, higher-income parents are behaving, they are still almost entirely having children inside of marriage. Both parents are investing an extraordinary amount of financial resources, time and energy into their kids. In some sense, it’s a luxury to be able to say, “I don’t want to make social commentary like that.” Well, that’s because the kids of higher-educated, higher-income...
Transcribe →Mark Yusko
Jan 1, 2017Tap to summarizeEpisode #31: Mark Yusko, “Asset Allocation Matters Most” Guest: Mark Yusko. Mark is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. Prior to forming Morgan Creek, he was President, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of UNC Management Company, the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1998 to 2004. Until 1998, Mark was the Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office where he joined as the Assistant Investment Officer in October of 1993. Date Recorded: 11/29/16 Run-Time: 53:09 Topics: Episode 31 starts with some background information on Mark. After some early-career twists, he got his “big break” – working for his alma mater, Notre Dame, in its endowment department. Several years later, The University of North Carolina came calling, and Mark took the helm for UNC’s investments. Eventually, he moved on to private wealth with his current group, Morgan Creek. Given the heavy institutional background, Meb asks about how endowments invest. Mark tells us that every large pool of capital manages its money the same way – investing in stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities. That’s it – though how you own those assets might change. Yet despite different wrappings, they all have the same risk factors. This leads Mark to focus on asset allocation, as “asset allocation matters most.” The conversation turns toward money managers (Mark uses various money managers at Morgan Creek). Meb asks how a retail investor can get access to the truly great money managers. It turns out, it’s very difficult. But Mark says you don’t necessarily want the well-known superstars who’ve been in the limelight for 20 years. You want to get onboard with them far earlier in their careers when no one is looking, before they become famous. As to how you actually find them, Mark says you have to “kiss a lot of frogs.” Meb follows up with an interesting question – forget about how to find great money managers…how do you know when it’s time to get rid of one? After all, it can be hard to tell when a manager’s investing system is flawed versus when he/she might simply be distracted by personal issues, or just going through a rough patch. Mark’s answer? Stop focusing on performance. Instead, focus on the other three P’s: 1) people 2) process, and 3) philosophy. If all you’re doing is looking at/chasing performance, chances are you’re going to underperform. So expand your analysis. Meb adds that this focus on performance isn’t limited to retail investors – institutions do this too. Mark agrees, having had personal experience with this. His group was hired, fired, re-hired, and so on, as one particular client chased performance. The guys then switch to venture capital, a huge area for outperformance. Institutional investors have the advantage here – the “illiquidity premium” as Mark calls it. Meb asks how retail investors can try to take part in this space. Mark tells us that, unfortunately, retail investors have one arm tied behind their backs courtesy of the SEC. Its philosophy is “If you’re not rich, you’re not smart.” So yes, investing in venture capital is very challenging for retail investors, despite some recent gains. Eventually, the conversation drifts back to asset allocation. Mark has a 3-bucket system he recommends. Bucket 1 – “liquidity.” This is about 2 years’ worth of spending. Call it 10-15% of your wealth in cash-like investments. Bucket 2 – your “get rich” bucket. Also 10-15%. He recommends investments like businesses and real estate, though most people use this money to chase the latest hot stock. Bucket 3 – your “stay rich” bucket. This one is all about diversification (whereas your “get rich” bucket was all about concentration). Meb agrees with this, telling us how the asset allocation required to get rich is different than the asset allocation needed to remain rich. The guys then move to predictions. Each January, Mark writes his financial predictions for the new year. So how did he do in 2016? They go over the results, with topics that include interest rates, the Japanese equity market, black swan events in Europe, roaring commodities, and the strength of the Dollar. This leads the guys into a more detailed conversation about U.S. interest rates, comparing us to Japan. Mark warns us about the Killer D’s: demographics, debt, and deflation. It’s a fascinating conversation with the short takeaway that we may not see the bottom in interest rates until around 2020-2022 (when demographics finally shift back in our favor). There’s far more in this episode, including “Red Ferrari Syndome,” a Twitter question to Mark about the biggest learning experiences of his career, and an asset class that’s about to be down a whopping 6 years in a row. What is it? Find out in Episode 31. Episode Sponsor: The Idea Farm and Lyft To listen to Episode #31 on iTunes, click here To listen to Episode #31 on Stitcher, click here To listen to Episode #31 on Pocket Casts, click here To listen to Episode #31 on Google Play, click here To stream Episode #31, click here Comments or suggestions? Email us [email protected] Links from the Episode: Morgan Creek Capital Management Twitter @MarkYusko Notre Dame Endowment Grantham Foundation and here 10 Surprises Save FairUS Q3 MCCM Quarterly Letter The Value of Value Q2 2016 Market Review & Outlook Two Thousand Zero Zero, Party Over, Oops, Out of Time… Q1 2016 Market Review & Outlook Beautiful, Useful: Mark: The Tao Jones Averages: A Guide to Whole-Brained Investing Meb: San Juan Hut System Transcript of Episode 31: Welcome Message: Welcome to the Meb Faber Show, where the focus is on helping you grow and preserve your wealth. Join us as we discuss the craft of investing and uncover new and profitable ideas, all to help you grow wealthier and wiser. Better investing starts here. Disclaimer: Meb Faber is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Cambria Investment Management. Due to industry regulations, he will not discuss any of Cambria’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cambria Investment Management or its affiliates. For more information, visit cambriainvestments.com. Sponsor: Today’s podcast is sponsored by the Idea Farm. Do you want the same investing edge as the pros? The Idea Farm gives small investors the same market research usually reserved for only the world’s largest institutions, funds, and money managers. These are reports from some of the most respected research shops in investing. Many of them cost thousands and are only available to institutions or investment professionals, but now they’re yours with the Idea Farm subscription. Are you ready for an investing edge? Visit the ideafarm.com to learn more. Meb: Welcome to the podcast, ladies and gentlemen. We have an extra special guest today. Mark Yusko, welcome to the show. Mark: Thanks, Meb. Always great to hang out with you. I’m looking forward to the conversation. Meb: Where are you calling in from? Are you in Chapel Hill right now? Mark: I am in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, home of the Tar Heel basketball team that is looking good after winning the Maui Classic. Two out of the last three times we won that. We ended up winning the national championship, so looking good this year. Meb: Well, great. My alma mater, Virginia, is a top 10 team as well. So hopefully have something to cheer for. Mark: Well you got a better-looking coach. You got that going for you. Meb: Most of our listeners are probably familiar with you. I’ve quoted and probably misattributed a number of quotes to you in podcasts past. But for those who aren’t familiar, why don’t you give us just a two-minute overview of kind of what you’ve been up to prior to starting Morgan Creek, starting with… Did I hear right? You were a fellow biology student at one point, or thinking about a… Mark: Absolutely. Meb: A career in medicine? Mark: Greatest training for investing. I’m a big believer that the sciences, whether it be biology and chemistry, my majors, or really any science is just great training for investing. I got into investing by happy accident kind of my whole life is a series of happy accidents. But I went school to be an architect. didn’t like that. Liked biology and chemistry, did that but I wanted to be a doctor. Decided not to do that. Went to business school. Went to Notre Dame undergrad, business school at Chicago. Took a job at an insurance company, like 40% of the people in the world. It’s an amazing step that 40% of the people work for an insurance company at some point in their career, or some related company to insurance company. The guy who was doing investments retired, took over the portfolio. I like to say I hired Dan Fuss before he was famous. So it’s the first hire I ever made as a fixed income guy. Then went to work for an equity firm called Discipline Investment Advisors, couple of Ex-Northwestern profs and then I got the call. So, way back when, Lou Holtz had a clause in his contract, lifetime contract at Minnesota unless Notre Dame called. I kind of had the same deal at Discipline. We were a billion dollars back when a billion dollars meant something. There were five of us, the two professors kept all the money but eventually young guys were gonna get something. But I wanted to be at my alma mater more than I wanted to be in Evanston, Illinois. Went back, learned the endowment business. Had a big epiphany that picking stocks and bonds was not all there was. It was really about asset allocation. It was about this thing called the Endowment Model. I spent five years as a number two. Was always gonna be the number two. I didn’t really care because it was the alma mater. But I got a call that they were looking for someone at North Carolina. I told my wife, she said, “Take it.” I said,...
Transcribe →Michael Covel
Jan 1, 2017Tap to summarizeEpisode #21: “We Can’t Make a Prediction Worth a Damn” Guest: Michael Covel. Characterized as “essential” and “required reading,” Michael teaches beginners to seasoned pros how to generate profits with straightforward and repeatable rules. He is best known for popularizing the counter-intuitive and very controversial trading strategy “trend following.” An avowed entrepreneur, Michael is the author of five books including the international bestseller, Trend Following: Learn to Make Millions in Up or Down Markets. Michael posts on Twitter, publishes his blog and records his podcast weekly. He has the distinction of interviewing five Nobel Prize winners in economics (so far), including Daniel Kahneman and Harry Markowitz and has been featured by major press, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CCTV, The Straits Times and Fox Business. Date: 9/13/16 Run-Time: 1:03:12 Topics: Episode 21 starts with a “thank you” to Michael, as it was his advice on starting a podcast that got “The Meb Faber Show” off the ground. But Michael and Meb quickly turn to Michael’s expertise, trend following. This is how Michael summarizes it: “We don’t know what’s going to happen. We can’t make a prediction worth a damn. The market starts to move, whatever that market might be. We get on board, and we don’t get out until it goes against us and we have an exit signal.” They then turn to the infamous “turtle” story. It involves Richard Dennis, a great trader from the 1970’s, who made his first million by about age 25. By the early 80’s, he was worth about $200 million. Around this time, the movie “Trading Places” came out (two millionaires make a bet on the outcome of training a bum to be a financial whiz, while taking a financial whiz and, effectively, turning him into a bum). Richard felt he could similarly train a financial no-nothing, turning him into a great trader. Richard’s partner felt it wouldn’t work. So they made a bet. How’d it turn out? Three or four years later, the group Richard trained had made, on aggregate, around $100 million. Meb then suggests that a profitable strategy such as trend following, that seems to work, should attract lots of investor dollars in the long run. So why then doesn’t trend following have more “big money” institutional investors using it? Michael points toward drawdowns – “the scarlet letter of trend following” – even though buy-and-hold has plenty of drawdowns too. The guys then agree that all investing is purely speculation. We like to believe there’s more certainty, but that’s not the case. They then bring up a quote from Ed Seykota: “Win or lose, everyone gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money.” Michael tells us this is true not only for investing, but life as well. Next, Meb asks about Michael’s podcast, which results in a great recap of how Michael got started and how he grew it to be the success it is today. The guys then discuss the mass of great investing content out there, for example, the hours of great interviews from Michael’s podcast—where is a new listener supposed to start? It’s overwhelming. Michael gives us his thoughts. This leads to Meb’s latest entrepreneurial business idea (which some listener should run with and make lots of money). There’s plenty more, including the guys touching on sensory deprivation, yoga/meditation, and of course, what each of them find beautiful, useful, or downright magical – Michael has about seven for us. What are they? Find out in Episode 21. Episode Sponsors: The Idea Farm and Soothe To listen to Episode #21 on iTunes, click here To listen to Episode #21 on Stitcher, click here To listen to Episode #21 on Pocket Casts, click here To listen to Episode #21 on Google Play, click here To stream Episode #21, click here Comments or suggestions? Email us [email protected] Links from the Episode: trendfollowing.com Covel’s Books and Podcast Jack Schwager Books Dunn Capital Chesapeake Capital Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Lefevre Aspect Capital Winton Capital Thinking Fast and Slow – Kahneman The Black Swan – Taleb Zurich Axioms – Max Gunther Ed Seykota Homepage Never Split the Difference – Voss Algorithms to Live By – Christian Ready Player One – Cline Running Segment: “Things I find beautiful, useful or downright magical”: Michael: Dropbox App Fox News App when traveling MagicJack App Global Entry and Apec Card Fish Sauce Ito En Tea Walking the Streets of Saigon Meb: Outstanding in the Field Transcript of Episode 21: Welcome Message: Welcome to Meb Faber’s show where the focus is on helping you grow and preserve your wealth. Join us as we discuss the craft of on investing and uncover new and profitable ideas all to help you grow wealthier and wiser. Better investing starts here. Disclaimer: Meb Faber is the co-founder and chief investment officer at Cambria Investment Management. Due to industry regulations, he will not discuss any of Cambria’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cambria Investment Management or its affiliates. For more information visit cambriainvestments.com Sponsor Message: Today’s podcast is sponsored by The Idea Farm. Do you want the same investing edge as the pros? The Idea Farm gives small investors the same market research usually reserved for only the world’s largest institutions, funds, and money managers. These are reports from some of the most respected research shops in investing. Many of them cost thousands and are only available to institutions or investment professionals but now they’re yours with the Idea Farm subscription. Are you ready for an investing edge? Visit theideafarm.com to learn more. Meb: Welcome to the show, friends. We have an extra special guest today, Mr. Michael Covel. Welcome to the show. Michael: Meb, thank you for having me. Meb: Where are you talking to us from? Michael: I’m talking to you from the great city of Saigon in Southeast Asia. Meb: Have you been put there for a while? Have you stayed put or you’ve been moving around? What’s the story? Michael: I’ve been jumping around Asia for the last three and a half years, and make it back to the States some. So yeah, I like this part of the world. Meb: Podcast listeners you may not know this, but you owe a massive debt of gratitude to Mr. Covel and the reason being is that we put off doing this podcast for many months, years even, largely because of what I considered to be the operational headache of getting it going, started up, all the recording equipment and editing and stuff. Then eventually, I emailed our buddy, Covel and said, “Hey, look you’ve done this going on…” Have you crossed 500 episodes yet? Michael: I’m close, but maybe 10 away something like that. Meb: And so I said, “Hey, look you’ve done this enough, any suggestions?” And I also emailed buddy Barry Ritholtz and said the same thing, “Do you have any suggestions?” And he put me in touch with some friends that help get the show up and running, with the equipment and all the to-dos. So you are kind of this show’s beginnings so a big thank you. And so, listeners, you need to go over and you can pause the podcast right now, and go subscribe to Covel’s podcast. He’s had all sorts of interesting people. Not just trend followers in investing but Nobel Laureates and everything else in between. And also, so now a little more background for those listening that are not familiar. Now you have a pretty varied background. Besides podcaster, a fellow writer, and you’ve done, how many? Five books? Michael: Four to five. One was kinda like, I don’t know, a book of data so I don’t count that one, so four, officially. Meb: Okay, I have about three books that are more pamphlet link than books so I claim five books. And actually have…what a credit as a movie producer? Didn’t you put out a short documentary as well? Michael: Yeah, beyond short, 90 minutes or so 6, 7 years ago, during the financial crisis. Meb: And it was Broke, right? Broke, what’s full name? Michael: Broke: The New American Dream I actually believe that the vast majority, well, that’s maybe a little unfair, but many people actually want to be broke by their actions. Meb: Oh man, that’s a topic we’re gonna hold onto for a little bit and come back to. But you know for listeners who aren’t familiar, and listeners, I say this with no bias whatsoever but you absolutely should pick up a copy of his book. The kind of probably your flagship book, I’m guessing, which is, Trend Following. And also Mike writes at the domain trendfollowing.com. But Trend Following: Learning to Make Millions in Up or Down Markets, is this the most updated edition, 2009? Michael: There is, but there is a new one coming in ’17. Meb: I was saying it’s about time for a new edition because I have also the edition prior to the ’09, earmarked and we’ve got a few copies in the office. All right, so why don’t…We’ve had a massive amount of interest in trend following in general from our listeners. And I was mentioning to you earlier is that it’s a little surprising to me because I’ve been writing about this for over a decade now and maybe the podcast is kinda drummed up some new listeners and maybe a younger generation. But I thought we had let you talk just a little bit about that world, and kinda a little bit about maybe the book or kinda the origin stories on trend following and then I’m sure after five minutes, it’ll veer off into a totally different direction. But kinda giving you the floor now to chat a little bit about that world, because people I know are super, super interested in it. Michael: I’ll still go back to probably the mid 1990s learning about trend following for the first time. And I’m sure it was the Turtle story. I’m sure it was the Market Wizards books and look most people don’t realize there’s Market Wizards books ...
Transcribe →In Praise of Maintenance - Freakonomics Freakonomics
Nov 25, 2016Tap to summarizeIs adequate maintenance more important for a growing society than exciting innovation? (Photo: Marc A. Hermann/MTA New York City Transit) Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “In Praise of Maintenance” (You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.) Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be taken care of? Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post, as well as credits for the music in the episode. * * * A while back, I got obsessed with the notion of maintenance – or, really, the notion of how much time maintenance takes. You go to the gym to maintain your body so it can do what you need it to do; maybe you go to a doctor and a dentist and a therapist too. You spend a third of your life sleeping so your brain can do what it needs to do. And think about all the time and resources that go into maintaining your work life — the meetings, the memos, the productivity apps. Of course there’s also your personal life to maintain. I got so obsessed with the burden of all this maintenance that I decided to precisely track how many minutes I was spending of each day on different forms of maintenance versus all the other things you try to accomplish. But after just a couple days, I quit this ridiculous exercise – because it had become just another maintenance task that kept me from doing the stuff I really wanted to be doing. I decided that maintenance was simply a curse that had to be accommodated. That the less I thought about it, the happier I’d be. And then I read something that changed my mind completely. Lee VINSEL: Our thesis is basically that our culture’s obsession with innovation and hype has lead us to neglect maintenance and maintainers. Today on Freakonomics Radio: “In Praise of Maintenance.” Because there’s not only a need but a certain nobility in taking care of what you’ve already created. And maybe we shouldn’t look at maintenance as the enemy of innovation. Larry SUMMERS: I think a great nation can walk and chew gum at the same time. Or can we? * * * There’s a digital magazine called Aeon that publishes essays about ideas and culture. Just as I was having my personal crisis about the burden of maintenance, I came across a fascinating piece in Aeon called “Hail the Maintainers.” The subtitle: “Capitalism excels at innovation but is failing at maintenance, and for most lives it is maintenance that matters more.” VINSEL: Okay, I’m Lee Vinsel. Andy RUSSELL: And my name is Andy Russell. They are the co-authors of the Aeon essay. Vinsel first: VINSEL: I’m an assistant professor of science and technology studies at Stevens Institute of Technology. RUSSELL: I’m also at Stevens Institute of Technology. VINSEL: I am trained as a historian, and most of my work looks at the relationship between government policy and science and technology. RUSSELL: I’m an associate professor of history and director of our program in science and technology studies. Vinsel and Russell had already come to believe that the American embrace of innovation had led to – here, I’ll quote them — “a mountain of dubious scholarship and magical thinking.” And then Walter Isaacson published a book called The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. VINSEL: Basically, Andy wrote me and a friend a kind of joke email saying, “We should answer with a book called The Maintainers: How Bureaucrats, Standards Engineers, And Introverts Create Technologies That Kind of Work Most of the Time.” Yeah, then we just decided to lay it out really clearly in an essay – so, examining where innovation rhetoric came from, what we call “innovation-speak,” then laying out a more grounded vision of human life with technology. DUBNER: I’ll ask you an impossibly broad question to start with: how much are we, I guess, hurting ourselves or missing out on, society-wise, globally — it gets more impossible to answer by the moment — by failing to appreciate the value of maintenance at the expense of innovation? RUSSELL: It’s a good question; it’s a broad question. One thing that we insist that’s important isn’t that we need to do only maintenance and get rid of innovation. We both appreciate innovation and creativity in new stuff. So there’s no argument there. I think in paying more attention to maintenance and maintainers , it’s really signaling a shift in values away from glittery new things, consumer culture and those sorts of things, and toward work, towards labor, towards maybe even sacrifice in the form of taxes or effort to sustain society, and to pay a little bit more respect to the people whose jobs do that. They’re not superstars, they’re just grinding it out from day to day. DUBNER: But I guess one of my counters to that argument — and maybe I’ve just been brainwashed by the innovation crowd — is that, Well, one of the promises of technology is that it would eliminate the need for much, or in some cases, all of that kind of handmade maintenance. So if you’re talking about something literally like a cleaning person, a janitor, someone who comes along to a public restroom in an airport 8, 12, 15 times a day to clean it up, I think, “Well, don’t I want the much-vaunted, self-cleaning bathroom that was supposed to be here by now? Wouldn’t that technology, if it worked well, be better? Because it would a) do a good job, and b) not require people to do that kind of work.” So, why are you making the argument that that kind of work is so important? Is it really a moral argument? VINSEL: It is a moral argument, that’s true, but I think we also need to just take stock of where we’re at. We live in a moment where lots of people are writing and talking about robots and artificial intelligence. And all these machines and technologies, they’re going to come along and replace drudgery, right? We’re not going to have to worry about that stuff anymore. But you know, I can show you movies put out by General Motors from 1955 that show you the kitchen of the future that’s not going to involve any labor for women, right? And that didn’t come true. And we have to be sober and say, “Yes, these things might come.” And that wouldn’t be bad, that would be great. But, we can’t pretend that we can just forget about all the labor that’s going on right now, and probably continue going on for the foreseeable future. Larry SUMMERS: People always think about what’s new. People always think about what can be named. That’s the Harvard economist Larry Summers, who has served as the president of Harvard, as the U.S. Treasury Secretary, chief economist of the World Bank, and as President Obama’s top economic adviser. SUMMERS: People always think more about how new ground can be broken than they think about how existing institutions can be sustained or existing facilities can be maintained. It leads to a constant trap where we underinvest in old things, then old things disappoint, us then we feel a need for new things, then to satisfy that need for new things we under-invest more in old things and the cycle goes on. You see it in the fact that we pay the equivalent of 40 cents a gallon in gasoline taxes for extra repairs due to the fact that we are not maintaining our highways right. You see it in an air-traffic control systems in the United States that still uses obsolete technologies and doesn’t use GPS. And as a consequence, we all spend more time with air-traffic delays, we burn huge amounts more energy, we take greater safety risks than we need to. You see it in developing countries where they’re always building new facilities, but then a few years later those facilities sit in a sense of disrepair. I think the fetish of novelty and the lack of glamor of maintaining and sustaining things is a besetting problem. You know, one very important area where you see this is the area of philanthropy where everybody always wants to start a new institution, do something new. And then be a catalyst and then have others fund their institution. Well, not everybody can be the one who levers other money. Some have to be levered. So I think it does lead to a fragmentation. It does lead to returns that are lower than they need to be. And in cases like the U.S. public sector, it can lead to tragic underinvestment. Okay, so let’s do a brief history of maintenance. We’ll talk about our cities, our homes, our infrastructure, and even how modern investors think about maintenance versus innovation. Let’s start way back … here: Ed GLAESER: Certainly, Rome understood that engineering and infrastructure was a huge part of making its city function. And it not only invested in that in Rome, but exported it elsewhere. That’s Ed Glaeser, another Harvard economist. GLAESER: So the sewage starts with the Cloaca Maxima, in the 6th century before the Common Era, and that’s associated with the last of the Tarquin Kings, the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima was the one of the world’s first sewage systems. GLAESER: It was maintained. There were people like Cato the Elder who was particularly famed for uttering that Carthage must be destroyed, “Delenda Carthago est” at the end of every speech. He was also heavily involved in water and sewage [laughs] [00:12:35] So they, this, you know, single-minded passion for the, the good of the Republic translated into caring about infrastructure, and he made it one of his, his pet themes. It was also an Augustan theme as well, right? Augustus wanted to be remembered for taking a city of brick and leaving it a city of marble. But he was also attentive to the water and sewage maintenance side of things. [00:13:03] And of course, Rome also was interesting in that they had — they weren’t rich by modern standards, maybe per c...
Transcribe →206. Proving Love: An Interview with Dr. Chuck Tingle - Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Oct 24, 2016Tap to summarize[music] Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 206 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today is Dr. Chuck Tingle. If you are not familiar with Dr. Chuck Tingle, prepare to have your life irrevocably changed. Dr. Tingle is the author of world-famous bestselling books, including My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass, Pounded by the Gay Color Changing Dress, Pounded in the Butt by My Book Pounded in the Butt by My Book…, Slammed in the Butt by My Hugo Award Nomination, Feeling the Bern in My Butt, Pounded by the Pound: Turned Gay by the Socioeconomic Implications of Britain Leaving the European Union, and Pokebutt Go: Pounded by ‘Em All. Dr. Tingle’s bio is equally impressive. It reads as follows – ‘cause you know I had to share this with you: Hugo Award nominee Dr. Chuck Tingle is an erotic author and Tae Kwon Do grandmaster (almost black belt) from Billings, Montana. After receiving his Ph.D. at DeVry University in holistic massage, Chuck found himself fascinated by all things sensual, leading to his creation of the “tingler”, a story so blissfully erotic that it cannot be experienced without eliciting a sharp tingle down the spine.Now this episode came to be because on Twitter he did an AMA wherein I asked, on Twitter, publicly in front of all of the people, if he would be a guest, and to my complete shock and utter joy, he agreed. His books and his online persona are surreal and fascinating, and so is this interview. I had a number of questions from podcast listeners and Patreon supports, plus several questions of my own. Dr. Tingle was kind enough to answer all of them. We talk about his mission to prove love and prove that love is real. We talk about dealing with people who are not on your wavelength. He discusses educating buckaroos, how one becomes a buckaroo or a lady buck, why he doesn’t want to write about famous women in the news or in current events, and he also talks about his GoFundMe to help people avoid thinking about the man with wieners for hair and also benefitting the Billings Public Library. We end by discussing his experience with his Hugo nomination and what books he’s working on now. Now, a special note for listeners: I know many people listen to podcasts at one and a half or one and a quarter speed. I typically listen at 1.25 speed. I want to encourage you to drop the speed down to one or even slightly less than one times normal levels for this episode because of the way that Dr. Tingle speaks. He has a very unique cadence to his speech, and I think if you listen at regular speeds you’ll have a much better chance of adapting your listening to how he speaks. This podcast is brought to you by Burn Down the Night by M. O’Keefe. Set in the world of O’Keefe’s bestselling Everything I Left Unsaid, Burn Down the Night follows a beautiful con woman who takes a bad-boy biker hostage in this edgy, seductive novel, available August 9th. We also have a four-author transcript sponsor, which I am super thankful for, and I, as always, want to thank garlicknitter for her unparalleled work transcribing all of our podcasts. [Aww, you’re welcome! I love this gig! – gk] Our transcript for this episode is being sponsored by award-winning, bestselling authors, all of whom prove love is real, by name of Kit Rocha, Courtney Milan, Alyssa Cole, and Alisha Rai. Buds, bucks, and lady bucks can click on the link in the podcast entry to download a free book from each one of these ladies. And if you’re thinking, I want that book right now! I want all of those books right now! You should head over to kitrocha.com/exclusive-offer. I am so excited about this episode, and I’m so excited to share it with you, so without further delay, on with the podcast. [music] Dr. Chuck Tingle: Hello, this is Doctor Chuck. Sarah: It is so nice to talk to you, sir. How are you today? Dr. Tingle: Hell-, hello, this, is this a lady buck-, buckaroo named Sarah? Sarah: That would be me, yes, this is Sarah. How are you? Dr. Tingle: Oh, I’m very, very good, thank you. Thank you for having me on your big-, big-time show! Sarah: I don’t know how big time it is, but I am so, so excited that you said yes, so thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Dr. Tingle: I thank you. Yeah, this is a good way. Sarah: This is definitely a good way. I do have two things I need to tell you. One, I’m required by law to tell you that I am recording, so: I’m recording this. Dr. Tingle: This is good. Yeah, yeah, please record, and then we’ll, well, we will prove love with this recording. Sarah: I think that is an excellent plan. Now, I did want to ask you if I could use “I Wanna Get Hard with My Buds” as the music for this episode. Dr. Tingle: Yes, this is, this is all a-okay. Sarah: Thank you for your permission! I am so excited to share that with my audience. So, would you please, for anyone who will be listening who may not have heard of you, which is very strange to me, would you introduce yourself, please, sir? Dr. Tingle: Yeah, yeah. This, this is Dr. Chuck Tingle, the best author in Billings, and I am a writer of a, a thing called Tinglers that are books that make love real and prove love for all who kiss, and then this is a good way. I am also a proud dad, and I have a handsome son name of Jon. Sarah: I have a number of questions for you from people all over the Internet. There are many, many people who are excited that you agreed to speak with me. In the, in the world of romance, which is kind of where I live on the Internet, you are something of a phenomenon, and there are many romance fans who are big fans of yours, so I wanted to ask you, have you read any romances? Dr. Tingle: Well, when I, when I was younger I didn’t get to read many books. I, I was not allowed, and, and so I wrote stories on my own that were, were mostly stories of mobs of animals that don’t exist anymore, like, like the dinosaurs or unicorns or things that maybe a long time ago were, were alive and roaming the earth, and, and then that, that was my favorite story. Eventually I found out that when I write, when I write with love, then, and then they started to kiss, and that was the way, that’s the way the story went. That’s just the way the cook-, cookie crumbled. Sarah: [Laughs] Dr. Tingle: So then I wrote my stories, and then I, I hid them, but then, then, then, there was the big fire, and then they burned away, so when I was older, then I moved to Billings and started writing, but mostly it was because I liked Stephen King and R. L. Stine, and they were my favorites, so then I wrote some stories like that and learned that in them, that if I wanted to prove love, it was real for all who kiss, that I had to maybe make the monsters kiss each other as time. Sarah: So ultimately, your writing led you to multiple examinations of love. Dr. Tingle: Yes, the, the point of all Tinglers is to prove love, and, and that’s rule number one, the most important thing in love that you could ever do, whether you write, whether you’re writing Tinglers or playing a game of handsome baseball with your buds, and I, you need to make sure when you wake up in the morning you’re saying, I’m going to prove love today. I’m going to go out there and get, get the day by the, get the day by hand and tell it that, that today we’re proving love, day. Sarah: I think that is a really wonderful philosophy to wake up for and to think of when you, when you wake up, and I have noticed on your Twitter feed, for months now, you have been very inspirational in how you talk about writing and your view of life, and you have many excellent inspirational images as well. Do you have advice for aspiring writers? Dr. Tingle: Oh, well, I am, I feel the, the way of most writers, if you’re writing a story then I, you’re probably all ready to prove love, because you have a feeling inside of you that you want to get out and show the world and to kind of, hello there, world, and nature is a land that I feel when I’m all alone in, in the dark, and so when you want to write with love, then, then everybody sees it and, and says, well, hello, this is a good way! I want to be a part of this, because it is in the normal scene. This is normal, to prove love, and so I think the best advice is, you know, when you make anything, you make it with love, and even if it’s a, a scary story like a Stephen King, which, you know, is a dark clown man coming out of the drain – Sarah: Ahhhhh! Dr. Tingle: – to claw. You know, he’s going to kind of come get you, but then you think, well, that, that maybe I have a fun time with my friends around the spooky fire listening to that story, and then we got spooked, and we got real scared and the, and the whole night was proved love, so it’s all about the, the, the intent of the story and if you’re writing for love, or sometimes bad, bad men, sometimes they are devils and they write to prove meanness and fear of, fear of all things, so, and they, they will fail in the end because they do not write with love. Sarah: That is very optimistic and is actually a reassurance I really needed right now, so thank you! Dr. Tingle: Oh, yeah, you are welcome to the true way. Sarah: This is a very true way. I don’t want to dwell on your, on your late wife, but you brought up fear and how when you write to prove fear that all things will fail because proving love is the much better way; it’s the good way. I know that grief is difficult, and when you’re writing and you’re trying to prove love, are you trying to reassure yourself? Are there any times when it’s hard to believe that love is real? Dr. Tingle: Well, yeah. As a human being, well, it’s, you know, we’ve got all kinds of feelings. Sometimes I’ll get in my head. Sometimes I go in the cupboard, open it up, and there’s no spaghetti left. You get so mad, and then you’ve got to ...
Transcribe →Podcast - Detrimental12 - Aussie Firebug
Aug 2, 2016Tap to summarizeSubscribe on Itunes Subscribe on SoundCloud Summary Our guest today bought his first shares of News Corp at 12 years of age. Realising later in life that money through investing and business ventures would be his escape from conservative country living in rural NSW. Investment properties in Australia and the US along with his own company are propelling Detrimental12 to reach financial independence in his early 30’s! With a net worth of over $800K he is well on his way. Show Notes Financial Independence Australia Subreddit Detrimental’s Blog about US Real Estate for Aussie’s When Koalas attack! Transcript: Aussie Firebug: Hey guys welcome to another episode of the Aussie Firebug podcast the financial independent podcasts for Australians where I interview people that have already reached financial independence or are on their way. Now today’s guest is slightly different because it’s a guy that I haven’t done too much research on yea, his name is Detrimental but he goes by detrimental on the foreign boards. First of all I would just like to say welcome Detrimental and thank you so much for being on this podcast. Detrimental: you’re very welcome, great to be here. Aussie Firebug: now I guess we’ll start with, for the listeners that don’t really know your story and that’s me included really because I would try to go to a couple of your older posts Detrimental: you tried to stalk me Aussie Firebug: Laughing that’s exactly what I did I tried to stalk you just to see if I could get some good questions but why don’t you just take us back to the very beginning of your journey and how you got to where you are today. Detrimental: yeah sure well interestingly I started on the path to financial independence long before I knew what the term was, so I was probably about 12 or 13 I grew up in a small country town in country New South Wales, yes I was probably about 12 or 13 when I wasn’t very happy i was quite depressed growing up and I knew I needed an escape and I knew the kind of money that would be my escape. so, from a very young age I was very interested in saving money, investing just trying to sort of escape from that……..unclear audio… Aussie Firebug: did that come from influences in the family; was that a result of your surroundings at the time? Detrimental: I was in a small rural town and it was just hard for me in high school and I just wanted to sort of get out. So I started for me when I was about 12 or 13. My parents had their own business; they had a small take away shop. I’ve had several uncles owning all sorts of business and investing in all of that as well. so I guess that’s where is all started for me I knew I knew that I wanted to just work and I didn’t know what financial independence was I just knew that I needed to get out and that’s where it kinda started for me, where it really picked up and where I really started researching financial independence was when I started a full-time job which was really just an office job strait out of university so I ended up moving to Canberra and my first office job straight out of University I was just incredibly depressed that first week I just kind of thought well this is my life now you know I’m stuck in this office job, what for the next you know 40 to 50 years and I just knew that I had to get out and that was when I really started focusing on getting out of the rat race. Aussie Firebug: okay now so let’s rewind a little bit so, you are at high school and? You’re in this small country town and your escape that you are sort of think of is I need money to get out of this country town. So I guess your first idea was not so much because you didn’t really know what financial independence was right? Detrimental: yeah that’s right. Aussie Firebug: at that stage yes, so you just knew you needed money to live a better life which was outside this country town which you were not too happy in of course, and then you graduate, what year did you graduate in? Detrimental: so, I graduate in I think it was around 2005 or 2006 am 27 now, yea 2005 to 2006 and the reason I guess is not because I was bullied in high school it was just because I was gay in a small country town Aussie Firebug: all right Detrimental: and from quite a religious family so that’s why I wanted to get out, yes I graduated in about 2005 to 2006 and my way of getting out was actually to go to University. Aussie Firebug: was that in Canberra? Detrimental: that was in Canberra yes. Aussie Firebug: oh, cool and what was that experience like, because depend on what your definition of small country town is but I definitely ……..country town but I know that would be tough man definitely like I could definitely understand how that could be rough, so you go to University in Canberra and what was that like? Detrimental: yeah it’s great like just what I expected and you know it was a great time and I don’t use my university degree now but I definitely don’t regret going Aussie Firebug: yeah Detrimental: yes so it was good, it is good and I am still in Canberra at the moment so after University like I said I got this office job and it wasn’t for me, I just could not see myself working in an office for Forty –to e 50 years regardless of what I was doing so I ended up moving into the hospitality industry or back into the hospitality industry Aussie Firebug: yeah Detrimental: so I ended up moving back into the hospitality industry, the physical side of hospitality as well as sort of the management side of hospitality Aussie Firebug: yes. Detrimental: and I definitely preferred that than working in an office but it really helped me to focus on achieving financial independence early in life. Aussie Firebug: yeah, so if you graduated in 2005 depending on how long your university course was it made you started full-time work, what? 2010 2009 or something like that? Detrimental: no because it took me a little longer than usual I think I started 2010 Aussie Firebug: 2010 okay cool. Detrimental: full-time work so it’s been five years now Aussie Firebug: yeah and so were you saving, did you have like part-time jobs leading up to this point? Detrimental: yeah absolutely I was a very unusual child, so I bought my first lot of shares when I was 12 years old. Aussie Firebug: yeah right, what did you buy? Detrimental: I bought news Corp. News Corporation when they were listed in Australia, no idea why my dad read the paper and subscribe so I thought that’s a good investment I would buy news Corp. Aussie Firebug: that’s funny so 12 years old spend his money on shares Detrimental: absolutely Aussie Firebug: any influence from your parents at all? Detrimental: no no Aussie Firebug: so you just always had that mindset, you were just always a good saver and you wanted to just grow your money and at this stage were you still thinking at this stage even as well that you needed money to get out and was that sort of another push to by those shares or was it just a fun thing with you just wanting to dip your toes in? Detrimental: it definitely wasn’t a fun thing I mean it turned out to be fun but it was a more I need money how do I make money let’s see if I we can make some money and I am going to become rich from the share markets. Aussie Firebug: ok, cool Detrimental: in truth I have probably lost more money than I made in the share market because I don’t know what I’m doing but that’s how it started when I was 12 moving to Canberra when I was at Uni I actually had about four or five different jobs I was working nonstop it actually help me get through University. I completely paid off my x debt. Aussie Firebug: nice It helped pay for my life and…………….. savings and I went traveling every year Aussie Firebug: cool Detrimental: so I’ve always been, some of my friends say I work too much. Aussie Firebug: yeah right, so you’ve always been good with money? Detrimental: yeah, yeah Aussie Firebug: right so I can definitely relate to that brutal first week of work in an office, I have been working in an office for 4 ½ years and that first week probably even that first year is pretty brutal. I spoke about this on the other podcast you always you know sort of the hours you meant to be working full-time but it’s not until you start doing it and waking up and going to work and coming back and getting into the routine that you realize how much time you actually spent at work and away from the people that you love so I can definitely relate to that. Detrimental: yeah absolutely Aussie Firebug: so, yes you do the first week at work you realize is not for you, if you don’t mind me asking so we are talking 2010 at this stage? Detrimental: 2010 that’s right. Aussie Firebug: 2010 what’s your net worth? At 2010 if you don’t mind my asking? Detrimental: No no no, it’s no problem at all just off the top of my head it would be very hard to tell you but I would say it would be probably a good saving probably about 20 or $30,000. Aussie Firebug: where? Detrimental: it’s a pretty decent amount considering I have……………… for Uni Aussie Firebug: Absolutely Detrimental: I just paid off my hex debt so 2010 my net worth was about 20 or $30,000 and I was just gearing up to buy my first house as well around that time Aussie Firebug: great okay. Tell us about that Detrimental: My parents were into property renovation and remember while I was growing I use to go to auctions with my dad buying houses renovating them and renting them out. Aussie Firebug: right so he was a real estate investor? Detrimental: he was a real estate investor? Definitely not on Sydney and Melbourne level you know this was this was a small country town don’t forget. Aussie Firebug: sure Detrimental: but it’s just weeke...
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