Money and Finance

Links

What They Don’t Teach You in Business School (LINK)

Thoughts on Fastenal (LINK)

Bill Miller on CNBC (videos) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Paul Graham: Default Alive or Default Dead (LINK)

The Upside of Having to Pee - by Jonah Lehrer (LINK)

When Prime Minister David Cameron is giving an important speech, or in the midst of difficult negotiations, he relies on a simple mental trick known as the full bladder technique. The name is not a metaphor. Cameron drinks lots of liquid and then deliberately refrains from urinating, so that he is “desperate for a pee.” The Prime Minister believes that such desperation comes with benefits, including enhanced clarity and improved focus.

.....

This new study suggests that the discrepancy depends on timing. When self-control tasks are performed sequentially, such as resisting the urge to eat a cookie and then working on a tedious puzzle, the ego gets depleted; the will is crippled by its own volition. However, when two self-control tasks are performed at the same time, our willpower is boosted: we perform better at both tasks. “We often do not realize the many situations in our daily lives where we’re constantly exerting self control and how that affects our capacity,” wrote co-author Iris Blandón-Gitlin in an email. “It is nice to know that we can also find situations where our mental resources can be facilitated by self-control acts.”

There are some obvious takeaways. If you’re trying to skip dessert, then you should also skip the bathroom; keep your bladder full. The same goes for focusing on a difficult activity – you’re better off with pressure in your pants, as the overlapping acts of discipline will give you even more discipline. That said, don’t expect the mental boost of having to pee to last after you relieve yourself. If anything, the ego depletion effect might then leave you drained: All that willpower you spent holding it in will now hold you back.

Teeth from China reveal early human trek out of Africa (LINK)

Book of the day [H/T to the friend who recommended I listen to the LSE podcast with Trott]: One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

Investing quote of the day: "There are ways of looking for stocks that take advantage of specialization and of these human tendencies to buy lottery ticket stocks, which investors do because they think they know more than they do. We are refining valuation methodologies all the time by carefully looking at and thinking about what outstanding practitioners like Warren Buffett do and integrating that into consistent, remarkably effective strategies." -Bruce Greenwald

- Links
Talks at Google - Hewitt Heiserman: "Ben Graham and the Growth Investor" (video) (LINK) Related book: It's Earnings That CountWhat Buffett and Seth Klarman Say About EBITDA (LINK) Stocks You Shouldn’t Own [H/T @chriswmayer] (LINK) Keep...

- Links
Always a great time to revisit this: Seth Klarman on the Painful Decision to Hold Cash [H/T @trengriffin] (LINK) Latticework of Mental Models: Moral Hazard (LINK) Meet Mark Spitznagel, the Investor Behind Universa’s Big Gain [H/T Jim] (LINK)...

- Links
Latticework of Mental Models: Tragedy Of Commons (LINK) Has Einhorn Lost His Mojo? (LINK) Stock Guru Bill Miller Is Back But the Questions and Pain Linger (LINK) Mark Hanson's latest thoughts on the housing market (LINK) Book of the day: Einstein's...

- Links
3G Capital, Berkshire to Buy Kraft, Merge It With Heinz (video) (LINK) Warren Buffett was also on CNBC discussing the deal, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. ValueWalk with more excerpts from the Baupost Group 2014 Letter (LINK) Farnam Street - Mental...

- Body And Brain - By Scott Adams
Link to blog post: Body and BrainThe common view of human behavior is that thinking causes doing. In recent years science has discovered this situation to be more of a bi-directional thing. For example, studies show that forcing a smile can lead...

Money and Finance