You Do NOT Want To Miss the Moose Joke April 29, 2016 Marketing genius Seth Godin is incredibly generous — here — but I am telling you: you do not want to miss the moose joke. Almost no one knows how to think about money and investing. Squadrons of people will try to confuse you and rip you off. Many will bore you. But Andrew Tobias [nice stuff, nice stuff, nice stuff; blush]. The brand new edition is right here. Back story: 32 years ago this month, I had lunch with Andy Tobias. I was pitching him on a partnership, and the meeting had been difficult to get. I was intimidated and soaking wet from running fifty blocks through Manhattan (no Uber!). As I sat in the New York Athletic Club, my cheap suit dripping wet (you can’t take off your jacket at the New York Athletic Club), I tried to break the ice by telling the moose joke. I told it pretty well, but Andy didn’t crack a smile. Even then, he was a canny negotiator. We never ended up working together, but his book probably did me more good than the project would have. And the story was priceless. ☞ Thank you, Seth! How could I not have laughed — or partnered with you? I am, in so many ways, an idiot. Tom Foley: “Speaking of price guarantees [Amazon’s now lowered the price 6 more cents], have you seen Paribus.com? Get money back when prices drop, effortlessly? It’s a few dollars back here, a few dollars there, but it’s free and pays for my subscription to your page.” There’s No Such Thing As a Free Rolex — I sure hope the Supreme Court reads this before they vote on former Virginia Governor McDonnell’s corruption case. First they allowed money to drown campaigns (Citizens United, then McCutcheon) and now they may legalize bribery? Really??
Almost Forgot To Do A Column Today! April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Thanks, Glenn: Forgetfulness by Billy Collins The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. I have a 30-year-old wing man (what: you don’t have a wing man? it’s the best thing!) who sometimes marvels at my inability to remember anybody. He is gregarious and outgoing, invited to everything, and so I asked him recently: “How many people do you think you meet in the course of a week? Between work and friends?” He thought about it and came up with, “I don’t know. Twenty?” “A-ha!” I pounced. “That’s a thousand a year and I’m about forty years older than you so I have to remember forty thousand more people so give . . . me . . . a . . . break!” I, of course, remember only a few hundred of those 40,000 — and the rest don’t remember me, either — but the poet has a point. I’ve seen movies where not until an hour in do I remember that, oh! Wait! I’ve seen this. As for the muses, I remember Terpsichore. Were there eight more? And with Google — let alone Google soon to be implanted in our brains somehow — do we really need to remember the others? (Parsimonia, not a first-team muse, I’m fairly sure, has always been mine.) Meanwhile — though you will soon forget my name and then the book’s title and then even its gist — my thanks to all of you who went and bought it yesterday. Mike Watts: “How great is this!” ———- Forwarded message ———- From: Amazon.com Customer Service <cust.service03@amazon.com> Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 12:25 PM Subject: Your savings from Amazon.com (order #106-7134457-038xxxx) To: mmwatts@xxxx.edu Greetings from Amazon.com. You saved $2.52 with Amazon.com’s Pre-order Price Guarantee! The price of the item(s) decreased after you ordered them, and we gave you the lowest price. The following title(s) decreased in price: The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need Price on order date: $13.65 Price charged at shipping: $11.25 Lowest price before release date: $11.13 Amount to be refunded: $0.12 Total Savings: $2.52 You will receive an additional e-mail when this refund is processed. ☞ “See?” I replied. “The book’s ALREADY paying you dividends!” And I don’t want to jinx it, but it got its first Amazon review, from someone named SeaBear (perhaps not his or her real name), which threw me into a Field-like paroxysm. Thank you, SeaBear, whoever you are.
Shameless Self-Promotion April 27, 2016April 26, 2016 MONDAY: Bill H. me-mailed: “First read your works in the Nineties. It had a fantastic effect and I would like to thank you! We’ve managed to save about $750K and I’m 45 with two kids. Question: I’m beginning to feel like managing all the investments / planning / strategies (SEP, 401Ks, Roths, 529s, etc, insurance, taxes, mortgage, etc) is becoming a little over my pay grade and time requirement. Do you have any recommendations for the next appropriate steps. Books, managers, etc?” > Yesterday was pub. date of the new edition, so [shameless self-promotion ON] I’d love you to blow $9.99 on the Kindle version or $11.13 on some wood pulp to see if it helps. If you feel you need a human, consider the asterisk blinking below at right, next to “Ask Less.” It leads you to a site that, in turn, leads you to this offer of his services. I’ve known Less a long time and doubt he will accept your $3,000 if you don’t need those services. (Think what you could do with $3,000! Are you sure you can’t do this yourself?) But it can’t hurt to give him a call. TUESDAY: I sent this to my few thousand closest friends: From: Andrew Tobias Sent: April 26, 2016 2:19 PM Subject: two money things Pls buy my book – eleven bucks! – new edition just out today. (A great graduation gift. Buy three!) On page 249, I show how much better investors do under Democrats – as I do here: $41,380 vs $575,324! Forward THAT to your moderate Republican friends. If they have even an ounce of greed in their bodies, they’ll vote our way. Thanks, as always. Andy PS – We really really need your help funding the core functions on which all our candidates rely – the tech platform, the 180-million name voter file, the $7,500 we send your state party and 49 others each month, the Convention everyone assumes we will hold and televise 12 weeks from now but don’t yet have the money to do. I need 1% of your net worth, or as close to that as you can come. Like a lobster claw, it will grow back in a few months – but you’ll have saved the Court for the next 30 years, and possibly the habitability of the planet (currently the only one available to us). Click here. WEDNESDAY (today): I promise not to ask you to buy or give anything for the rest of the week.
Stocks Do SO Much Better Under Democrats April 26, 2016April 25, 2016 I’ve long made this case . . . for example here in 2008: a New York Times infographic by Tommy McCall showing how $10,000 invested in the S&P since 1929 only under Republican presidents would have grown to $11,733 but to $300,671 under Democrats. In 2012, I went back four more Republican years, to 1925, to match the four more Democratic years we’d just had, which changed the results to “less than $30,000” under Republicans but “more than $300,000” under Democrats. (All these numbers exclude dividends.) So with a new election looming, I’ve tried it again, this time going back yet another four Republican years, to 1921, to balance the four more Democratic years since 2012 — 48 years each — and this time I used the Dow instead of the S&P because the data were easier to come by. Drum roll, please? As of Friday’s close, your $10,000 would have grown to $41,380 under Republicans but to $575,324 under Democrats. Vote blue, boys and girls. Because as I’ve argued before, it’s not one of those flukes without causation — like the way you could seemingly predict the market depending on who won the Super Bowl. Republicans and Democrats have different governing philosophies that cause different economic outcomes. Republicans promote inequality, thinking that the wealthy — being the “job creators” — should be lightly taxed while unions are busted, the minimum wage held low, Medicaid expansion rejected, and Pell Grants cut back. But as Nick Hanauer so wonderfully explains, it is the middle class — the consumers — not the wealthy who are the job creators. Democratic policies that boost the bottom 95% have repeatedly proven to grow the economy better than Republican “trickle-down economics” designed to advantage those already best off. What’s more, Republicans are by nature conservative — and so, for example, blocked the American Jobs Act that would have revitalized our infrastructure: a terrific engine for economic growth. Democrats are by nature progressive — more apt to invest in the future. Stock market performance seems to confirm that, over time, and in broad strokes, one governing philosophy serves most of us better than the other.
When Uber Lets You Summon A Drone April 25, 2016 Have three minutes to enjoy a thought-provoking video? Click here. It’s still science fiction . . . but three years from now? Five? (Thanks, Marc! Thanks, Gizmodo!)
Balancing the First Amendment and Drug Policy April 22, 2016April 25, 2016 Imagine marijuana is legal — as in some states it already is, but at the federal level it is not — and you’re a newly minted MBA landing your first job. You’ve been hired by Altria, aka Philip Morris, to oversee one of their 15 marijuana brands. Your goal in life is to excel and get rich, which as a practical matter, given this particular job, means your goal is to have as many Americans stoned as much of the time as possible. I’m not sure I like that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t. I’m as pro-pot as the next guy — prohibition just leads to crime (think Chicago in the Thirties) and marijuana is way less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, and nonaddictive. Not to mention “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Or that for many suffering chronic pain or the nausea of chemotherapy, withholding this cure is truly cruel. Got it. But if we had tobacco to do all over again, would we have allowed aggressive marketing? We can always “go big” later if we decide it makes sense to spend billions marketing drug use. But once we do go big, if we ever do, it’s sure hard to pull back. Look how many decades it took to reign in Big Tobacco, or even just to keep them from marketing cigarettes to kids. (Remember the phallic Joe Camel ads?) So here are the kinds of restrictions I’d like to see as we legalize marijuana, because, frankly, I don’t think marijuana needs a lot of promotion. It’s already quite popular with no marketing at all. + No color, graphics, or photography in any packaging, signage, advertising, or marketing, including social media, of any kind. + No “product placement” in TV, movies, or video games. + No one company (or affiliated group) exceeding $10 million in revenues. Details to follow. (Should you, for example, be allowed to vape but not smoke in public venues?) The goal would be to have anyone who wants to smoke weed free to do so; just not to promote getting stoned. Which raises the very big issue of the First Amendment. How can you restrict promotion of a legal product? Can’t be done! Shouldn’t be done! If that’s the case, here’s the solution: Let each state decide its own drug laws, as they are now, but keep drugs illegal at the federal level. Don’t legalize, decriminalize drug use. As illegal substances, it should be okay to impose the restrictions suggested above. The only criminal penalties (fines, not prison time!) would be for violating those restrictions. Last Friday I posted a letter from more than 1,000 of us to the UN Secretary General regarding the world’s failed drug policies. (Since then, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders have signed on. We already had Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, George Shultz, Tom Brady, and Busta Rhymes.) In part: . . . The drug control regime that emerged during the last century has proven disastrous for global health, security and human rights. Focused overwhelmingly on criminalization and punishment, it created a vast illicit market that has enriched criminal organizations, corrupted governments, triggered explosive violence, distorted economic markets and undermined basic moral values. Governments devoted disproportionate resources to repression at the expense of efforts to better the human condition. Tens of millions of people, mostly poor and racial and ethnic minorities, were incarcerated, mostly for low-level and non-violent drug law violations, with little if any benefit to public security. Problematic drug use and HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and other infectious diseases spread rapidly as prohibitionist laws, agencies and attitudes impeded harm reduction and other effective health policies. Humankind cannot afford a 21 st century drug policy as ineffective and counter-productive as the last century’s. A new global response to drugs is needed, grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. . . . Our letter got some good coverage . . . e.g., the Washington Post . . . and yesterday Canada told the UN it planned to legalize marijuana next year. Portugal would seem to have it about right. From Wikipedia: The drug policy of Portugal was put in place in 2001. The new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. However, the offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than a ten day supply of that substance.[1] In April 2009, the Cato Institute published a comprehensive case study of the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal.[2] Empirical data from that report indicate that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates. However, drug-related pathologies – such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage – have decreased dramatically. . . . In short: Here’s an issue (like marriage equality) on which liberals and libertarians can agree. As can even quite a few Republicans who don’t like the fortune we taxpayers are forced to spend each year on mass incarceration. And just as marriage equality reached a tipping point and then suddenly happened very fast, so may we be at a tipping point here. Might we see sanity in the drug laws over the next few years? Will you help talk it up? But also lean against empowering that newly-minted MBA to use all his creative skill and youthful energy to maximize drug use? Just how nuts the current system is is clear from this item: The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of a mandatory life sentence without parole for possessing a small amount of marijuana. Lee Carroll Brooker, a 75-year-old disabled veteran, is serving a life sentence in an Alabama prison for growing three dozen marijuana plants for his own medicinal use behind his son’s home in Dothan, Ala. Really? Does this make sense to you? Join the movement! Forward this to your friends!
Shouting “Fire” In A Crowded Drug Den: Decriminalize, Don’t Legalize? April 22, 2016April 22, 2016 Imagine marijuana is legal — as in some states it already is, but at the federal level it is not — and you’re a newly minted MBA landing your first job. You’ve been hired by Altria, aka Philip Morris, to oversee one of their 15 marijuana brands. Your goal in life is to excel and get rich, which as a practical matter, given this particular job, means your goal is to have as many Americans stoned as much of the time as possible. I’m not sure I like that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t. I’m as pro-pot as the next guy — prohibition just leads to crime (think Chicago in the Thirties) and marijuana is way less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, and nonaddictive. Not to mention “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Or that for many suffering chronic pain or the nausea of chemotherapy, withholding this cure is truly cruel. Got it. But if we had tobacco to do all over again, would we have allowed aggressive marketing? We can always “go big” later if we decide it makes sense to spend billions marketing drug use. But once we do go big, if we ever do, it’s sure hard to pull back. Look how many decades it took to reign in Big Tobacco, or even just to keep them from marketing cigarettes to kids. (Remember the phallic Joe Camel ads?) So here are the kinds of restrictions I’d like to see as we legalize marijuana, because, frankly, I don’t think marijuana needs a lot of promotion. It’s already quite popular with no marketing at all. + No color, graphics, or photography in any packaging, signage, advertising, or marketing, including social media, of any kind. + No “product placement” in TV, movies, or video games. + No one company (or affiliated group) exceeding $10 million in revenues. Details to follow. (Should you, for example, be allowed to vape but not smoke in public venues?) The goal would be to have anyone who wants to smoke weed free to do so; just not to promote getting stoned. Which raises the very big issue of the First Amendment. How can you restrict promotion of a legal product? Can’t be done! Shouldn’t be done! If that’s the case, here’s the solution: Let each state decide its own drug laws, as they are now, but keep drugs illegal at the federal level. Don’t legalize, decriminalize drug use. As illegal substances, it should be okay to impose the restrictions suggested above. The only criminal penalties (fines, not prison time!) would be for violating those restrictions. Last Friday I posted a letter from more than 1,000 of is to the UN Secretary General regarding the world’s failed drug policies. (Since then, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders have signed on. We already had Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, George Shultz, Tom Brady, and Busta Rhymes.) In part: . . . The drug control regime that emerged during the last century has proven disastrous for global health, security and human rights. Focused overwhelmingly on criminalization and punishment, it created a vast illicit market that has enriched criminal organizations, corrupted governments, triggered explosive violence, distorted economic markets and undermined basic moral values. Governments devoted disproportionate resources to repression at the expense of efforts to better the human condition. Tens of millions of people, mostly poor and racial and ethnic minorities, were incarcerated, mostly for low-level and non-violent drug law violations, with little if any benefit to public security. Problematic drug use and HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and other infectious diseases spread rapidly as prohibitionist laws, agencies and attitudes impeded harm reduction and other effective health policies. Humankind cannot afford a 21 st century drug policy as ineffective and counter-productive as the last century’s. A new global response to drugs is needed, grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. . . . Our letter got some good coverage . . . e.g., the Washington Post . . . and yesterday Canada told the UN it planned to legalize marijuana next year. Portugal would seem to have it about right. From Wikipedia: The drug policy of Portugal was put in place in 2001. The new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. However, the offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than a ten day supply of that substance.[1] In April 2009, the Cato Institute published a comprehensive case study of the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal.[2] Empirical data from that report indicate that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates. However, drug-related pathologies – such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage – have decreased dramatically. . . . In short: Here’s an issue (like marriage equality) on which liberals and libertarians can agree. As can even quite a few Republicans who don’t like the fortune we taxpayers are forced to spend each year on mass incarceration. And just as marriage equality reached a tipping point and then suddenly happened very fast, so may we be at a tipping point here. Might we see sanity in the drug laws over the next few years? Will you help talk it up? But also lean against empowering that newly-minted MBA to use all his creative skill and youthful energy to maximize drug use? Just how nuts the current system is is clear from this item: The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of a mandatory life sentence without parole for possessing a small amount of marijuana. Lee Carroll Brooker, a 75-year-old disabled veteran, is serving a life sentence in an Alabama prison for growing three dozen marijuana plants for his own medicinal use behind his son’s home in Dothan, Ala. Really? Does this make sense to you? Join the movement! Forward this to your friends!
Linux April 21, 2016April 21, 2016 Linus Torvalds, the reclusive man behind Linux. He speaks! Even if you’re not a computer guy — I’m not either — I think you’ll find his story fascinating. Ten days ago I mentioned William Worthington Fowler’s 1880 Twenty Years of Inside Life in Wall Street or Revelations of the Personal Experience of a Speculator, then available only on Kindle; now, here, as an actual physical book. Where you or I will find time to read this enticing volume is an open question. I still haven’t seen Straight Outta Compton or switched to Fios or cleaned my windows (Renee is wonderful four hours a week, but Renee doesn’t do windows) — all items on a very long to-do list . . . nor visited most of the 250 places on this list nor raised nearly enough money to assure the best possible outcome November 8, which sounds like just one more thing to do but actually will determine the nature of the Supreme Court for the next 20 or 30 years . . . and it is the Court that gave us Bush and the Iraq War and a wrecked national balance sheet, and then — moved further right by Bush — gave us Citizens United, McCutcheon, and the decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, all serving to shift yet more power to the already powerful. So much to do! (Click here.) Guess what? I now have seen Straight Outta Compton and it’s powerful. I now, decades late, “get” — or at least kinda get — Gangsta Rap and who Dr. Dre is and who Ice Cube is and why the film should have been represented in the Oscars this year. Last year I mentioned Merchants of Doubt, by Oreskes and Conway, which shows how the same scientists paid to mislead the public about the dangers of tobacco now are paid to mislead us on climate change. Here it is on video. All that oughta keep you busy for a while.
Most Useful Sites April 20, 2016 Could these really be the Top 50 Useful Websites You Wish You Knew Earlier? Let me know if there are any you particularly like — or have had bad experiences with — and I’ll share it with the group. Here’s why Democrats are suing Arizona. Isn’t it kind of rotten that Republicans work to make it difficult to vote? (In this case, among other things, they reduced the number of polling places in poor neighborhoods by 70%.) Have you read Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right? If you think all this just kinda happened, well, no. It’s been decades in the making. Let’s hope that November 8 we can do a little unmaking. Moderate Republicans are fine — but we don’t seem to have elected many in quite some time. Jane Mayer’s book helps explain why.
Never Bored – Part 2 April 19, 2016April 18, 2016 Jim Burt: “I’m glad you enjoyed the ‘Backyard Scientists.’ [Yesterday’s post.] I have always considered boredom a sort of character defect which reflects more badly on the person suffering from it than on his or her circumstances. Yes, we have access to endless resources now for the avoidance of boredom, but if nothing else is available we have memories, imagination, and hopes/plans to use to entertain ourselves. [Still, standing in an endless supermarket line before smart phones? really?] One of the available resources is e-books, of course, but I don’t know whether you are aware of how many of those are free or heavily discounted. I suggest you go to Bookbub, where you can sign up for a daily listing of free or cheap books in both fiction and nonfiction genres, and various formats, according to your tastes. Between Bookbub and my public library, I rarely find myself paying for a book. [Music to an author’s ears.] Another resource is various on-line college level courses. You mentioned TED and the Khan Academy – this latter I discovered through one of my grandchildren – but many universities offer the opportunity to audit courses on a host of subjects on-line for free. I did one from Yale on ancient Roman architecture. If it’s a course that is not reliant on visual images, you can often download it, strip the audio out of the program, and listen to it as you drive or stroll around. We never have to stop learning, and now we can continue to do so from some of the best teachers and institutions in the world – for free!” ☞ “Remember,” Jim concludes, “we all have to get older, but none of us has to grow up.” And thank heavens for that.