Finance is not merely about making money. It's about achieving our deep goals and protecting the fruits of our labor. It's about stewardship and, therefore, about achieving the good society.
The future is always coming up with surprises for us, and the best way to insulate yourself from these surprises is to diversify.
Hesitation is often like procrastination. One may have vague doubts and feel a need to mull things over; meanwhile, other issues intrude on thought, and no decision is taken. Ask people why they procrastinate, and you probably won't get a crisp answer.
A lot of people aren't saving enough. And incidentally, people are living longer now, and health care is improving. You might end up retired for 30 years - people are not really preparing for that.
The desperately poor may accept handouts, because they feel they have to. For those who consider themselves at least middle class, however, anything that smacks of a handout is not desired. Instead, they want their economic power back.
We don't know the probabilities of future events. Still, you have to take action, and so you do it on gut feeling. That's the world we live in.
Critics of 'economic sciences' sometimes refer to the development of a 'pseudoscience' of economics, arguing that it uses the trappings of science, like dense mathematics, but only for show.
Some of the best theorizing comes after collecting data because then you become aware of another reality.
Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.
I think we do need to try to not just rely on the central bank to, in its wisdom, adjust interest rates, but allow for people to avoid being exposed to inflation risk.
If I was counselling an individual, and my purpose was to help that individual, the most important thing would be that you should save more. Because don't expect that your retirement will follow those trajectories that some advisers are telling you.
People who stay unemployed for a long time start to look like damaged goods, and they don't get such good offers. Also, they're not learning anything. Most learning is on-the-job learning.
Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure.
Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance; it depreciates. It goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there's technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better. So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad.
As a child, I was fascinated by any branch of physical or biological science. Even today, I find great excitement in discovering the complexity and variability of the world we live in, getting a glimpse into the deeper reality that we mostly ignore in our everyday human activities.
Trump does magic. Maybe it will be black magic sometime, but he's an amazing phenomenon.
I didn't vote for Trump. So we've got him. Let's hope for the best. He might do something good.
I want to know diverse facts about such things as galaxies or molecules or proteins or insect species. I have an impulse to want to know the little details, which are usually of no significance to non-specialists. I own a dissection microscope, and if there is an insect in the house, I sometimes catch it and look at it under the microscope.
Diversify, because that helps reduce risk. And you can diversify outside the United States. Some people would never invest in Europe - I think that's a mistake.
There's so much disagreement about investing, and it's because nobody really knows.
