TED is a non-profit founded in 1984 ‘to help spread ideas’, although it’s more famous for its short videos, 3,500 of which have been produced since 2009. There is also the spin-off TEDx, which are local events and is only tangentially related to TED. The videos typically cover economics, behavioral psychology, or business, but others… Continue reading The Fake World of TED and Pop Psychology

Glenn Loury was recently on the Lex Fridman podcast. “Regardless of his race, he’s black” I hope so. I would be shocked to learn if if he’s white. It’s not called the Nobel Prize in economics, because Alfred Nobel didn’t stipulate such a category in his will. There is no such category. Instead it’s called… Continue reading Thomas Sowell and the Nobel Prize

I saw this going viral Why do those with higher IQs live longer? A new study points to answers Among the thousands of people studied, those in the top 10 percent of childhood intelligence were two-thirds less likely to have died from respiratory disease by age 79 than people in the bottom 10 percent. They… Continue reading IQ and Life Expectancy

From Freddie deBoer again Nobody Walks Around Feeling Valid: Of all the toxic and disheartening elements of the internet era, the worst is the way that our concept of human value is so often seen as purely crowdsourced, I think. It’s resulted in an internet where a huge portion of the activity ultimately amounts to… Continue reading Backtracking, Authenticity, and Validity

Another correct prediction: MicroStrategy (MSTR) has officially given up all its BTC gains: The reason why MSTR is lower despite Bitcoin still being at $29k is because from 2020-2022 Saylor took on billions of debt to buy Bitcoin at an average price of $32k, so he’s underwater by 10% as of writing this. But it’s… Continue reading That tweet aged poorly

I saw this Lyn Alden article Investing During Stagflation I think the main problem is that stagflation is so uncommon that it’s not possible to predict which assets or investments will work. There is just not enough data to work with. You have to go as far back as the ’70s or maybe the early… Continue reading Hedges against inflation, stagflation

I saw these two articles going viral: College Became the Default. Let’s Rethink That., by John McWhorter, and College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life, by Jamie Paul. McWhorter’s criticism is more nuanced, but yet again, we see another well-educated individual who parlayed his prestigious degree into a good-paying, high status career who now… Continue reading Pushing Back Against the anti-College Movement, some thoughts

I saw this article by Moldbug on Compact Mag, Elon Musk’s Twitter Revolution. Too bad they have now put all of their content behind a paywall. I don’t understand why they would do this when it cuts off potential traffic and viralness. From the passages that are not paywalled, he writes: But if the deal… Continue reading Reinstating Trump would boost Twitter’s earnings, user engagement

I saw the Reddit post Is investing based on the speculation of infinite growth? going viral While I have been in the stock market for two years, and I have seen my portfolio increase I now have a concern as a long term investor. Over the past several decades we have seen the S&P provide… Continue reading GDP vs. Profits Paradox: Strong Returns in Slow Growth Environments

MicroStrategy (ticker: MSTR) CFO admits that MicroStrategy could face a margin call if Bitcoin falls below $21,000. In other words, it will need to put up collateral. As I said last year, MicroStrategy will likely be insolvent if Bitcoin was to fall to $10,000 and would have to raise capital, likely at very unfavorable terms,… Continue reading The Daily View, 5/5/2022: MicroStrategy, Facebook , Abortion