Money and Finance
- The Trouble With Freedom – By John Gray
Found via Farnam Street. Not long after the start of the 21st Century, we like to tell ourselves an uplifting story in which freedom expands whenever tyranny is overthrown. We believe that freedom and democracy are inseparable, so that when a dictator...
- One Economist's Mission To Redeem The Field Of Finance
Found via The Big Picture. Among the members of the rogues' gallery blamed for the crash of the economy in 2008, none have worn the black hat of villainy quite as convincingly as greedy financiers. Robert J. Shiller, however, sees them and their field...
- A Conversation With Outlier Malcolm Gladwell
Found via Farnam Street. Peter Cappelli: Many of us marvel at your books, which are about the intersection between small stories and small pieces of research that build up to something really fundamental and which, in a few cases, have become part of...
- Heretical Thoughts About Science And Society - By Freeman Dyson
At the Wesco Annual Meeting, Charlie Munger said that we should listen more to Freeman Dyson and less to Al Gore. Here’s a good article to start on that path (thanks for the link, Bud). I think the first paragraph is very applicable to investing as...
- Why We Are, As We Are
As the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On The Origin of Species” approaches, the moment has come to ask how Darwin’s insights can be used profitably by policymakers … For a Darwinian, life is about two things: survival and reproduction....
Money and Finance
John Mauldin: The Cashless Society
It is a common trope in science fiction novels. Economic transactions are handled seamlessly with a wave of a card or a physically imbedded chip, and whatever the author imagines money to be is transferred, far removed from the archaic confines of ancient physical monies. If you Google "cashless society" you get about 600,000 references in under a second, and 20 pages into the references there are still articles on a future world where physical cash is no longer needed. Some see it as a sign of the "end times," some as a capitalist plot, some as a frightening vision of socialists and ever-bigger governments, and some as a logical step in the evolution of a technologically driven international commerce.
And some of the "cashless society" references are showcase articles for the latest innovation that turns your phone or smart card into a functional wallet. I can attest it is quite possible to go for days without needing actual cash (as long as there are no kids around). The Bitcoin phenomenon (28 million sources on Google!) is a libertarian enthusiast's dream of not just a cashless society but a society with no need for fiat money and central banks.
Today we'll look at research suggesting that cashless future might be farther off than we either fear or hope. Not only is a cashless society farther away than some think, we are actually seeing an increase in the use of cash all over the world (and this is not just a US phenomenon). We will look at some interesting factoids that in themselves make for thought-provoking discussions, but when we couple them with research on the rise of the unreported economy (aka the underground economy) and the number of people who get some form of government assistance, we may find problematic consequences resulting from hidden incentives that work in unintended ways.
- The Trouble With Freedom – By John Gray
Found via Farnam Street. Not long after the start of the 21st Century, we like to tell ourselves an uplifting story in which freedom expands whenever tyranny is overthrown. We believe that freedom and democracy are inseparable, so that when a dictator...
- One Economist's Mission To Redeem The Field Of Finance
Found via The Big Picture. Among the members of the rogues' gallery blamed for the crash of the economy in 2008, none have worn the black hat of villainy quite as convincingly as greedy financiers. Robert J. Shiller, however, sees them and their field...
- A Conversation With Outlier Malcolm Gladwell
Found via Farnam Street. Peter Cappelli: Many of us marvel at your books, which are about the intersection between small stories and small pieces of research that build up to something really fundamental and which, in a few cases, have become part of...
- Heretical Thoughts About Science And Society - By Freeman Dyson
At the Wesco Annual Meeting, Charlie Munger said that we should listen more to Freeman Dyson and less to Al Gore. Here’s a good article to start on that path (thanks for the link, Bud). I think the first paragraph is very applicable to investing as...
- Why We Are, As We Are
As the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On The Origin of Species” approaches, the moment has come to ask how Darwin’s insights can be used profitably by policymakers … For a Darwinian, life is about two things: survival and reproduction....