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One of my favorite notes - so many good points there
In addition to the challenge of changing human nature (if you want to change the goal of financial advice) as I noted in my Tweet on your piece - and from your analogy - the advantage Vito had is that he had a Michael to hand it over to and to protect him in “retirement -” Michael needed a Michael.
Vito’s advantage was brilliantly adumbrated in one of the best scenes in any movie ever - when Michael thwarts the attempted assassination of the Godfather in the hospital. Also - different times - there was some code - some limits / some sense of boundaries - in the mafia world of the '40s/'50s that was clearly gone by the '80s.
And Kudos to you and Rusty as it says so much about your and his passion that you are putting out fresh material - real thought provoking pieces - over the weekend.
So do we zig or zag here, what is the game of the market telling us? Is one or more of the three horseman nigh?
My son (10) was flipping thru channels and landed on Titanic (the end when Rose and Jack are in the water). Immediately he wanted to know if Jack was going to die, why weren’t there enough boats, why couldn’t he survive swimming in ice cold water, why did the captain hit the iceberg… How to explain hubris to a kid.
Why do I feel there is going to be a lot of explaining to do when he gets older?
Love this post. For those not on Twitter, although this is not specifically related to investing (but I feel many of the Epsilon posts speak to broader themes as well), it reminded me of this post by Dave Winer from 18 years ago that I adore, “Transcendental Money”: http://scripting.com/davenet/2000/10/19/transcendentalMoney.html Very profound.
I hadn’t seen this Winer post, Tanya. Really good! TY.
I wanna end up like Zorba. Part ravaged by the past, part mad dreamer, but still free.
It is exactly articles like this one that made me WANT to subscribe to Epsilon Theory!
Thank you Ben, David and even Rusty ( even though he hates Philadelphia, it’s sports teams and by extension the people in the 4th largest market in the country! ) but I digress.
But to Ben specifically, thank you not only for your insights in the market game but more importantly for your insights on life itself.
I personally believe I’ve made the right meta-game decisions in my life but of course there are always doubts when one has intentionally not chosen maximizing, especially in our culture. This beautifully written article brought joy to my heart and reaffirmed the decisions I made .
And will continue to make
Glad to have you in the pack, Peter! And thank YOU.
Ben,
If you look back in your inbox to March, 2015, you’ll find a message from me in response to your post about the perils of operators like Steven Cohen using big data to achieve an unfair advantage in the market. My message, in part, was as follows:
“Long ago, I figured out that playing fields are seldom level, and that big players take advantage of smaller players – the smaller the better. Whales don’t get big by chasing fish; they scoop up krill – by the million. With these cruel realities in mind, I never use leverage, I avoid investments where information asymmetry is a significant risk, and I spend a lot of time pondering how much is enough. Answering this last question is far and away the most important element in my investment discipline. For those for whom the answer is always MOAR!, I have no sympathy. They are swimming with the krill, and Mr. Cohen is welcome to make a meal of them.”
It sounds as though you’ve arrived at a similar conclusion.
Really profound writing Ben. This really brings back memories of my mother’s father and his final day. For generations he and his family had a large scale fruit and vegetable farm just south of Baltimore. After the end of World War 2 the city of Baltimore decided that it needed a big new airport and that his farm was the perfect location. If you have ever flown into BWI airport, then your plane landed on land where he once grew tomatoes, green beans and cantaloupes for the people of Baltimore. He took the city of Baltimore’s money and moved out to Howard County near where my family had a dairy farm and bought a farm to raise beef cattle, And of course a huge vegetable garden as well. Then in the mid 60s the Rouse Company came along and decided to build the planned city of Columbia right in the middle of our county . So he sold to Rouse and moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where he had about 3 acres on the water where he continued to have a big garden every year. He didn’t see his farms in terms of potential capital gins or return on investment. He liked owning land because it let him live his life doing what he loved. He outlived my grandmother by many years. In fact my grandfather never spent one day in a hospital. I can never recall him ever being sick. I never heard him once complain or say anything bad about anyone. But that just may have been just because my grandmother did all the talking in the family. He met his end while working in his beloved garden. It was late winter and he was burning off all the dead vegetation from the previous season. The fire got out of hand. It could have been smoke inhalation or the exertion of trying to extinguish the fire, but his life ended right there. He was 92 and I don’t think think there could have been a fitter way to go.