Ideas on Personal Finance
Most careers won’t die slowly. They’ll get steamrolled. In the early 1800s, most Americans were farmers. Today, hardly anyone is. What Happened to Farming? Simple: farming changed. Machines replaced muscle. Big machines took over the hard work. Big farms gobbled up small ones. Many farmers either moved to the city or found ways to upgrade – … Read more
I’ve often wondered about the connection between money and happiness. So I asked around – people doing well, people figuring it out… and anyone patient enough to answer my questions. And the pattern was surprisingly clear. This post is a reflection of these conversations. The truth about money and happiness They say money can’t buy … Read more
What if America wins back its factories – and loses its financial superpower status in the process? We all know the story: China builds stuff. America moves money. That’s been the case for years. China is the world’s factory – cranking out everything from smartphones and solar panels to your neighbor’s Halloween decorations. China makes … Read more
Everyone thinks they can do it: Buy low; sell high. Retire early. Go on CNBC and talk about it. But April 2025 has been a masterclass in why that almost never happens in real life – unless you have a crystal ball! Let’s look at a couple of examples. April 9: A 90-Day Pause and … Read more
We’ve seen this movie before. And like most sequels, it’s louder, flashier, and still misses the point. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s promised to change everything. Groceries, news, relationships – even dog food – suddenly had a .com slapped on it like gold stars on a kindergarten report card. Investors threw money at … Read more
Regular readers of this blog have seen a few bear markets with me. However, there is nothing regular about this bear market. The speed at which markets have fallen has been unnerving. Most banks are now forecasting a recession. Even if a recession is somehow avoided, there is definitely a slowdown in the economy ahead. … Read more
What a difference a month makes! This time last month, the US stock market was hitting all time highs. Now the market is in a correction (down more than 10%). I try to avoid talking about politics—this is a personal finance blog, after all! However, there are times when politics has such a big impact … Read more
In theory, investing is pretty straightforward – Buy Low, Sell High! Buy things when they are down. Sell things when they go up. In practice, investing is pretty difficult. Let’s take the first part of the equation – buying low. When stocks go down, we should buy them, right? But when stocks fall 10% there … Read more
A couple of years ago, the stock market crashed, and everyone was freaking out. The S&P 500 index fell from a high of around 4,800 to a low of about 3,500 in 2022—a 27% drop. Many stocks fell even more—Amazon’s stock dropped by half, and Meta (Facebook) was down 65%. Back then, I wrote a … Read more
When people worry about the threat from AI, they invariably imagine robots coming for us, like in the movie Terminator. They envision AI suddenly becoming self-aware and sending Terminator robots to exterminate humanity. But does the real threat from AI come from Terminators; or from our increasing over-reliance on AI? AI and Driving Let’s take … Read more