Not sure how I came across this book, likely some random video from youtube. The author is a character… and the book is good, it is not the crazyness from “The Wolf of Wall Street” and it tells the history from poor to richest of an east London lad with a talent in Maths.
One of the most shocking things, it is how he used inequality for this trading. And because I read recently read about interest rates, there is a paragraph that is a gem. Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer. You put interest rate at zero because you want to encourage spending and rise prices…, but that is not happening. Rich dont spend money in the same things as poor people… rich people buy assets, so stocks are high, real state is high. And they have access to super low rate loans… so it is circle vice. Middle class is extinct.
I am jealous he could ride his bicycle in Tokyo.
Interesting video that shows things from the book.
Ironwood TPUv7: just worth taking a look at the pictures of the racks
Rewrite BGP Origin: never thought about this action, for wining in the BGP selection process….. and having a lower router-id gives you too an edge!!! (fee people has access to 2/8! … and you dont have to own the router-id range… you can’t check it!!!) RIPE91
F1 Croissant: I am pretty sure I tried that croissant the time I went to Melbourne. It was the strangest bakery ever…. you buy the things like you are dealing with the drug dealer… the croissant was very good, but I remember it was the most expensive croissant ever too! From the video, it is incredible that they don’t use any extra flour for dusting!
Videos
Morgan Housel – The Art of Spending Money: A lot of psychology about money.
Oz Pearlman: I was amazed how uncomfortable was the presenter when Oz read him.
Vinh Glang: The art of communication – I need to watch this several times (for interviews)
In my trip to Nanog95, I managed to visit Houston Nasa Center and this bookshop. I wanted to buy the latest book from the owner but I couldn’t and by chance I found a book from Baltasar Gracian. It was funny because I wanted to read that book after reading the 48 laws power. So I bought it and after a short walk in the town, I got back to my drive.
I liked the intro and the bit of history of Baltasar and how important the book was for some prime philosophers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer (who translated to German!)
I think the most repeated words in the book are prudence and wisdom. There are 300 short entries, and most of them are worth commenting about but I will some main ones.
33: “Know when to put something aside” = learn to say no.
51: “Know how to choose”. This is from XVII, so 400y ago they new about the problem about having options. I think this is one of the main issues we have nowadays.
90: “The art of living ling: live well. The strength of the mind is communicated to the body. A good life is long both in intention and extension”.
103: “To each, the dignity that befits him. Not everyone is a king, but your deeds should be worthy of one”.
104: “Have a good sense of what each job required: … Far better are the jobs we dont grow bored with, where variety combines with importance and refreshes our taste”. And you think boredom or burnout is only recent…..
105: “… Good things, if brief: twice good. Brevity is pleasant and flattering, and it gets more done”. This is one I use more often, and my favourite.
125: “.. The prudent person doesn’t register the defects of others or become a vile, living blacklist.
130: “… To excel and to know how to show it is to excel twice”
137: “… Be that friend to yourself and you will be able to live by yourself”.
251: “Use human means as though divine ones didn’t exist, and divine means as though there were no human ones.” This is from Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
262: “Know how to forget: It takes more luck than skill”: Amen
295: “Not a braggart, but a doer: … Content yourself with doings: leave saying to others”
297: “Always behave as though others were watching”
299: “Leave people hungry. The good, if little, is twice good” similar to 105.
300: Be a saint. Virtue is chain of all perfections…. She makes you prudent, discreet, shrewd,….
I liked this book as it is only focus is about interest.
It starts with a good historical research. It was interesting to learn that interest was created before money itself! And the definition of interest is in the title of the book. When you borrow money, you need to pay a fee for the time you use to compensate the other person for the time it doesnt have it (and risk of not getting back)
Then goes with the evolution of money and interest. Interest has been critical for trading and economical expansion. Interest has always had a bad name due to usury, that is the abuse of people via huge interest rates. We still have today with credit cards and next-payday companies.
The author says that interest is necessary if not, there is a economical stagnation. But, then comes the interesting thing. The usage of interest in the financial engineering. The low interest rates looks like they are source of most of the financial crises we have seen. The idea is, if your savings don’t produce a decent interest (at least above inflation), you lose money. So that has pushed companies to borrow cheap money and invest anywhere the interest is higher or get to risky activities (mortgage subprimes?). That produces not real economical growth, as companies don’t borrow money for create or improve products (R&D, expansions, etc) but for creating value to shareholders (increase the share price), that is an excuse to get rich quickly. Somehow it is difficult to believe how important is debt nowadays.
As well, something very interesting is the construction bubble created in China due to the low interests rates. I have never read about it.
Most of central banks have played badly with the money printing machine and trying to keep interest rates low with the excuse to help people but at the end of the day, only companies had access to that low rates.
Like everything, you need a balance. You dont want usury but if you manage to save some money, you want some return from that if you keep it in a bank, and that as well, keep companies in check so they need to be sure about the risk they take when taking investment credits.
