Category Archives: Personal Development

“The Century of the Self” series

Similar to the “Arithmetic, Population, and Energy” video, this series ranks right up there as a “Must Watch.”  I was fortunate enough to find and watch this a couple years ago on Youtube (before its removal), and rediscovered it this week – so I wanted to share it with all of you.

I’ll let the Wikipedia description summarize the series (it does so perfectly):

“This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.” —Adam Curtis’ introduction to the first episode.

The series describes the propaganda that Western governments and corporations have utilized stemming from Freud’s theories.

Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy, commodification and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitudes to fashion and superficiality.


The Century of the Self: Engineering of Consent
http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-the-engineering-of-consent-1-5/6d93daeb5363e5e7a0c2

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-the-engineering-of-consent-2-5/bdfb5d6ae5edbc4d6224

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-the-engineering-of-consent-3-5/b97fc7a22ceb13d1ecef

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-the-engineering-of-consent-4-5/0328690a0ecb1deec47d

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-the-engineering-of-consent-5-5/5cff077bbac880eb26c0


The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines
http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-1-5/b51dafc9f3d7d50014d9

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-2-5/fefab156649f373eaf03

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-3-5/18b0ca7364428bc441f7

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-4-5/a35ec5b397f0c9800aeb

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-5-5/608d0b4ef61d74296aa7


Enjoy!

 

[WSJ] Best Books for Investors: A Short Shelf

Jason Zweig, a columnist over at the WSJ, published the following list of recommended books on investing. With the myriad of choices available and limited time, it may be helpful for those looking for some “vetted” reading material.  Enjoy!


Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich, Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them

In clear, simple prose, Belsky and Gilovich explain some of the most common quirks that cause people to make foolish financial decisions. If you read this book, you should be able to recognize most of them in yourself and have a fighting chance of counteracting some of them. Otherwise, you will end up learning about your cognitive shortcomings the hard way: at the Wall Street campus of the School of Hard Knocks.

Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

The late polymath Peter Bernstein poured a long lifetime of erudition and insight into this intellectual history of risk, luck, probability and the problems of trying to forecast what the future holds. Combining a stupendous depth of research with some of the most elegant prose ever written about finance, Bernstein chronicles the halting human march toward a better understanding of risk—and reminds us that, after centuries of progress, we still have a long way to go.

John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds

The founder of the Vanguard Group and father of the index-fund industry methodically sorts fact from fiction. Following his logical arguments can benefit you even if you never invest in a mutual fund, since Bogle touches on just about every crucial aspect of investing, including taxes, trading costs, diversification, performance measurement and the power of patience.

Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton, Triumph of the Optimists

Neither light reading nor cheap (it’s hard to find online for less than about $75), this book is the most thoughtful and objective analysis of the long-term returns on stocks, bonds, cash and inflation available anywhere, purged of the pom-pom waving and statistical biases that contaminate other books on the subject. The sober conclusion here: Stocks are likely, although not certain, to be the highest-performing asset over the long run. But if you overpay at the top of a bull market, your future returns on stocks will probably be poor.

Richard Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! or What Do You Care What Other People Think?

These captivating oral histories of the great Nobel Prize-winning physicist ostensibly have nothing to do with investing. In my view, however, the three qualities an investor needs above all others are independence, skepticism and emotional self-control. Reading Feynman’s recollections of his career of intellectual discovery, you’ll see how hard he worked at honing his skepticism and learning to think for himself. You’ll also be inspired to try emulating him in your own way.

Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor

Originally published in 1949, called by Warren Buffett “by far the best book on investing ever written,” this handbook covers far more than just how to determine how much a company’s stock is worth. Graham discusses how to allocate your capital across stocks and bonds, how to analyze mutual funds, how to take inflation into account, how to think wisely about risk and, especially, how to understand yourself as an investor. After all, as Graham wrote, “the investor’s chief problem—and even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.” (Disclosure: I edited the 2003 revised edition and receive a royalty on its sales.) Advanced readers can move on to Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, Security Analysis, the much longer masterpiece upon which The Intelligent Investor is based.

Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics

This puckish riff on how math can be manipulated is only 142 pages; most people could read it on a train ride or two, or in an afternoon at the beach. As light as the book is, however, it is nevertheless profound. In one short take after another, Huff picks apart the ways in which marketers use statistics, charts, graphics and other ways of presenting numbers to baffle and trick the public. The chapter “How to Talk Back to a Statistic” is a brilliant step-by-step guide to figuring out how someone is trying to deceive you with data.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Successful investing isn’t about outsmarting the next guy, but rather about minimizing your own stupidity. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2oo2, probably understands how the human mind works better than anyone else alive. This book can make you think more deeply about how you think than you ever thought possible. As Kahneman would be the first to say, that can’t inoculate you completely against your own flaws. But it can’t hurt, and it might well help. (Disclosure: I helped Kahneman research, write and edit the book, although I don’t earn any royalties from it.)

Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes

In this classic, first published in 1978, the late financial economist Charles Kindleberger looks back at the South Sea Bubble, Ponzi schemes, banking crises and other mass disturbances of purportedly efficient markets. He explores the common features of market disruptions as they build and burst. If you remember nothing from the book other than Kindleberger’s quip, “There is nothing so disturbing to one’s well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich,” you are ahead of the game.

Roger Lowenstein, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

This book remains the most comprehensive and illuminating study of Warren Buffett’s investing and analytical methods, covering his career in remarkable detail up until the mid-1990s. If you read it in conjunction with Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball, you will have a fuller grasp on what makes the world’s greatest investor tick.

Burton G. Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street

In this encyclopedic and lively book, Malkiel, a finance professor at Princeton University, bases his judgments on rigorous and objective analysis of long-term data. The first edition, published in 1973, is widely credited with helping foster the adoption of index funds. The latest edition casts a skeptical eye on technical analysis, “smart beta” and other market fashions.

Bertrand Russell, [Sceptical Essays or The Scientific Outlook](Sceptical Essays or The Scientific Outlook)

Russell is Buffett’s favorite philosopher, and these short essay collections show why. Russell wrote beautifully and thought with crystalline clarity. Immersing yourself in his ideas will sharpen your own skepticism. My favorite passage: “When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man…. It is an odd fact that subjective certainty is inversely proportional to objective certainty. The less reason a man has to suppose himself in the right, the more vehemently he asserts that there is no doubt whatever that he is exactly right.” Think about that the next time a financial adviser begins a sentence with the words “Studies have proven that….”

Alice Schroeder, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

With unprecedented access to Buffett, Schroeder crafted a sensitive, personal and insightful profile, focusing even more on him as a person than as an investor—and detailing the remarkable sacrifices he made along the way. If you read it alongside Lowenstein’s Buffett, you will have an even deeper understanding of the master.

Fred Schwed, Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?

First published in 1940, this is the funniest book ever written about investing—and one of the wisest. Schwed, a veteran of Wall Street who survived the Crash of 1929, knew exactly how the markets worked back then. Nothing has changed. Turning to any page at random, you will find gleefully sarcastic observations that ring at least as true today as they did three-quarters of a century ago. My favorite: “At the end of the day [fund managers] take all the money and throw it up in the air. Everything that sticks to the ceiling belongs to the clients.”

“Adam Smith,” The Money Game

In the late 1960s, the stock market was dominated by fast-talking, fast-trading young whizzes. The former money manager George J.W. Goodman, who wrote under the pen name “Adam Smith,” christened them “gunslingers.” In this marvelously entertaining book, Goodman skewers the pretensions, guesswork and sheer hogwash of professional money management. Reading his mockery can help sharpen your own skepticism toward the next great new investing idea—which almost certainly will turn out to be neither great nor new.


Have you read any of these books yourself?  Feel free to share your  thoughts & feedback!

Always check your sources : Question everything

What do anti-vaxxers, folks that swear MSG is a bad thing, and the quote above have in common?

“The info / sources are all faked”

I find it incredibly interesting how many people can simply read something, with really very little data backing up said claims, and accept it at face value.

Worse – when this info can be incredibly damaging – such as in the case of the anti-vax movement, one seriously wonders if this is simply a symptom of the decline of our education system.

Anyways, long story short – always check your sources.  There’s no shame in being ignorant or admitting being wrong – but there’s absolutely terrible to be passing along bad information, especially when that bad info can cost lives.


 

Sources for the above, for your pleasure:

Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud,’ British journal finds
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/

One Map Sums Up The Damage Caused By The Anti-Vaccination Movement
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/one-map-sums-damage-caused-anti-vaccination-movement

Why MSG Is Perfectly Safe
http://www.businessinsider.com/is-msg-sodium-in-chinese-food-safe-to-eat-2014-8