Thursday, May 30, 2013

Mad Scientist?

Lifted from the great blog, "The Big Picture", by Barry Ritzholtz.

Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas leading the reader from sets of more or less plausible but entirely arbitrary assumptions to precisely stated but irrelevant theoretical conclusions. -Wassily Leontief, Science, Volume 217, 9 July 1982, p. 106.

Always a good idea to keep in mind when you read a news article that begins with "A new study released today said,..."


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Are You A Freelancer?

If you aren't, then just wait a while...you probably will be.


40 Percent Of Americans Will Be Freelancers By 2020 - Vivian Giang, Business Insider

By 2020, more than 40 percent of the American workforce, or 60 million people, will be freelancers, contractors and temp workers, according to a study conducted by software company Intuit.

The entrepreneur business model will play a major role in the future workplace. The report also says that in the next seven years, the number of "small and personal businesses in the U.S. alone will increase by more than 7 million" and fulltime, full benefit jobs will be harder to find. Most of these businesses will be web or mobile-based and will work closely with a global workforce.

In 2020, one in six Americans will be older than 65, but they won't be "traditional" seniors as they will continue to work part or full-time.

Do you think this is a positive development?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Map of All Tornadoes in USA

My heart goes to the folks in Oklahoma dealing with the devastation there. I grew up in the midwest and was taught, in elementary school, what to do when the tornado alarm sounds. Sad.

I came across this map today and thought I'd share it with you. It comes from iO9.com (a pretty cool site you should read). Using data from the government, they plotted the disftance and strength of every recorded tornado in the USA.



Thursday, May 16, 2013

How to Get Smarter- The Buffett Way

I just read this story last night and thought I would share it. Very good advice from some very successful people.

"The Buffett Formula- How To Get Smarter" - Farnam Street blog


How to get smarter 
Read. A lot. 
Warren Buffett says, “I just sit in my office and read all day.” What does that mean? He estimates that he spends 80% of his working day reading and thinking. 
“You could hardly find a partnership in which two people settle on reading more hours of the day than in ours,” Charlie Munger commented. 
When asked how to get smarter, Buffett once held up stacks of paper and said “read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge builds up, like compound interest.”
All of us can build our knowledge but most of us won’t put in the effort. 
One person who took Buffett’s advice, Todd Combs, now works for the legendary investor. He took Buffett’s advice seriously and started keeping track of what he read and how many pages he was reading. 
The Omaha World-Herald writes
Eventually finding and reading productive material became second nature, a habit. As he began his investing career, he would read even more, hitting 600, 750, even 1,000 pages a day.
Combs discovered that Buffett’s formula worked, giving him more knowledge that helped him with what became his primary job — seeking the truth about potential investments. 
But how you read matters too. 
You need to be critical and always thinking. You need to do the mental work required to hold an opinion. 
In Working tougher: Why Great Partnerships Succeed Buffett comments to author Michael Eisner: 
Look, my job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action. And Charlie—his children call him a book with legs.