Money and Finance
- Henry Ford, Business Reinvestment, And Higher Wages Leading To Lower Labor Costs
I think the excerpt below, from The Dao of Capital, about Henry Ford shows a few traits that many successful businesses have in common. I specifically thought about Amazon.com and Costco in regards to lowering costs, heavy reinvestment, and...
- Links
The WSJ has written a couple of critical articles on Theranos, HERE and HERE. Theranos responded with a statement HERE. Elizabeth Holmes was also on CNBC discussing things HERE. Bethany McLean talks to Felix Salmon about Fannie and Freddie, and her...
- Links
The BIS Annual Report (LINK) Steve Keen: "If you want to understand Greece today, read Wynne Godley from 1992." (LINK) The Bruce Greenwald Method [H/T @mjmauboussin] (LINK) Steven Romick’s Speech To CFA Society Of Chicago [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)...
- Links
Munger’s Psychology Mindmapped (LINK) [A great post, and similar to what I'm doing with Munger's speech via a memory palace. The one thing I would recommend is using the speech from Poor Charlie's Almanack and not the online text from 1995,...
- Looming Port Strike Deadline Pressures Obama To Intervene
This seems like a story that should be getting a little more attention. I talked to someone this morning who works for a manufacturing firm and they've been having weekly meetings on this for 3 months. They've built up an extra month's inventory...
Money and Finance
Innovation and disruption...
A Tweet from Alice Lloyd George [H/T @PlanMaestro] about the shipping container moved me to add it to a section (below) of my investment reminder file, and reminded me that I need to finish the book The Box (There are also a couple of Malcom McLean tidbits in the book Pay Attention to the Thin Cow):
Are you using the current business model and not anchoring on how the business used to be (i.e. remember that businesses are always changing)?
- Has there been a significant change in the structure of this market/industry, no matter how stable it seems to have been in the past? For example:
- Steel prices declined 80% after Carnegie developed and built a new kind of plant that massively increased output.
- After the Spindletop discovery in Texas by the Hamil brothers in 1901, a barrel of oil dropped from about $2.00 down to $0.03. Oil at that time was cheaper than water.
- The price of a car went from 2 years wages to 3 months wages due to the assembly line, although this was over a ten year period.
- Malcolm McLean’s 1956 innovation of the shipping container slashed shipping prices from $6 to $0.16 cents per ton.
- Henry Ford, Business Reinvestment, And Higher Wages Leading To Lower Labor Costs
I think the excerpt below, from The Dao of Capital, about Henry Ford shows a few traits that many successful businesses have in common. I specifically thought about Amazon.com and Costco in regards to lowering costs, heavy reinvestment, and...
- Links
The WSJ has written a couple of critical articles on Theranos, HERE and HERE. Theranos responded with a statement HERE. Elizabeth Holmes was also on CNBC discussing things HERE. Bethany McLean talks to Felix Salmon about Fannie and Freddie, and her...
- Links
The BIS Annual Report (LINK) Steve Keen: "If you want to understand Greece today, read Wynne Godley from 1992." (LINK) The Bruce Greenwald Method [H/T @mjmauboussin] (LINK) Steven Romick’s Speech To CFA Society Of Chicago [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)...
- Links
Munger’s Psychology Mindmapped (LINK) [A great post, and similar to what I'm doing with Munger's speech via a memory palace. The one thing I would recommend is using the speech from Poor Charlie's Almanack and not the online text from 1995,...
- Looming Port Strike Deadline Pressures Obama To Intervene
This seems like a story that should be getting a little more attention. I talked to someone this morning who works for a manufacturing firm and they've been having weekly meetings on this for 3 months. They've built up an extra month's inventory...