JAK

Getting my quota of whiskey in while back in the home country (Ireland).

Merry Christmas to one and all !! Hope Santa was good !

Rest in Peace Charlie. You'll be sorely missed. So many learned so much from you! Was hoping he would make it to 100, my grandmother passed away a few months short of her 100th as well. Kind of strange, but considered Warren and Charlie as wise old grandparents in a way. Dispensing wisdom from their armchairs. Grew up listening to them, and learned as much about life from them as I did about investing. Never made it to Omaha, but sent him a thank you letter last year. Didn't get a response, but very happy that I sent it now that he's gone. "The best armour of old age is a well-spent life preceding it." "The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more."

Yeah, I’m big on audio also .. found Skunk Works on Audible.fr ! Agree on Acquired, well worth a listen.

On the back of the Acquired podcast on LMT, I recently started reading Skunk Works by Ben Rich. Oldie, but very interesting read. Noting here in case anyone’s interested.

I stocked up on a bunch of that last year fearing it would be impossible to get. Then, last week I walk into my local wine store in a suburb of Paris, and randomly, they suddenly have Beluga, when they didn't have it previously... owner said no issue with supply either, which kind of puzzles me. Thought imports would've been blocked, and the store doesn't strike me as the back channel kind of place.

Circuits / HIIT are pretty efficient if you are stuck for time. Though not sure if they work if you are also stuck for energy. Got these two from my trainer once (they take longer than 10 minutes, but sharing the concept, as you could adjust if you like the idea). Deck of Cards: Assign a bodyweight exercise to each suit in a pack of cards (e.g. lunges, squats, mountain climbers, crunches). Pick cards from the deck. Do the number of reps of the matching exercise. Face cards count as 10. Aces are 1 or 11 depending on fitness. Jokers are a 30 second break. 50 Club: Pick a weight that you can lift 12 times in a set, no more. Try to hit 50 reps for that exercise in as few sets as possible. If you go over 12 in a set, the extra don't count, and you need to increase the weight next time. Rest no more than about 30 seconds in-between sets. Don't decrease the weights, even if you drop to 4-5 reps per set. Start with one exercise, do the cycle of 50, then move onto the next. Adjust number of exercises depending on time requirement. Example full session shown below. Db thruster Bodyweight skull crusher Db bent over row Dumbbell curl + press Db overhead tricep extension Db calf raise

I remember reading about this before I visited Beijing. The history buff in me wanted to cry... Until the 1950s/1960s, Beijing had one of the World's largest and best preserved examples of fortified city walls. This was a series of walls outside the Forbidden City. The British etc. had made a few holes to make way for railroads, and some were damaged in relatively recent rebellions. However, the walls and towers were still standing for the most part. Unfortunately, the powers that be wanted to modernise asap, and also build an underground metro to double as a bunker, and the quickest way to do that was to just knock down the walls and build the ring roads, metros, sewers etc. where they stood. So only a tiny segment of what the walls remain. By contrast, places like Xian or Pingyao, where there was less paranoia / urgency still have their (amazing!) walls.

In Shanghai at the moment. Been a bunch of times, but this is the first time since 2018, and the change in cars on the road astounded me. Firstly, the iconic VW Santana taxis seem to have been completely replaced by Roewe EVs. Secondly, EVs seems to be a double digit percentage of the cars on the road now. Impressive, although potentially biased in Shanghai as local license plates are costly and restricted unless EV. Puzzled by affordability of car ownership here though.. Walked around the car park of a midrange apartment building and counted 5 Teslas, bunch of Chinese EVs, BMW, Porsche, Lexus… cars seem more high-end than an equivalent neighbourhood in Paris. Is it all debt-funded status symboling? Or is it a sort of survivorship bias i.e. you don’t see the bangers, because the people who would drive a banger in the West, drive a scooter here?

Nice, this might have solved a problem for me actually. Needed a copy of something from a site that’s down for work, and Google cache doesn’t store images. On the FT issue.. a way around lots of paywall sites is to Google the title of the article in Cognito mode. No cookies and the native search hit is accessible… Sometimes you might need to delete cookies on Chrome anyway, but I’d say 90% of the time, you don’t. Doesn’t work on all paywalls, but it works on enough!

I would add that it is almost as important to think about, and remember what you read, as it is to read. So quantity while impressive, is a bit of a waste if you don't retain it. Maybe its age, but I find there's lots of things that strike you as interesting, and you think you will later remember so you don't note them down, but you don't actually remember... During Covid, I read 52 books in one year (fiction and non-fiction). The next year, I settled for 26. Lots were audiobooks, so I guess 2X speed and doing housework didn't help. However, going through my list on Goodreads, there are some, where if you offered me $1 million to write a 1 pager on them, I would probably struggle to get out more than a few lines... So I would definitely recommend active notetaking, I use Notion as its on phone and pc, so accessible and with me all the time, and searchable (as opposed to scribbles in the margin of hardback). However, it does slow down the reading process a lot... hard to take notes on audible, while also doing the dishes.. On the upside, you can reread your personalised notes (more meaningful to you than sparknotes), instead of rereading an entire book if you need a refresher.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

This is exactly what happened my Dad. He got Covid, recovered, then a few weeks later went down with a serious illness. Liver function tests off the charts, no energy, could barely walk a hundred meters without needing a rest (when he is fit as a fiddle usually). Negative for Covid. Doctors flummoxed for weeks, and no change in symptoms. They finally did some edge case screening tests, and determined it was a couple of viruses, can't remember the name, which most of us have, and which don't cause trouble 99.999% of the time, unless you have severe immune problems or are on immunosuppressant pills because of a transplant, neither of which were applicable in his case. Seems Covid caused his immunity to drop so low that these viruses were able to kick in somehow. Thankfully he recovered. However, had he not, I guess that would not count as a Covid case.

Based on this suggestion, I searched Amazon France for "How We Decide". Picked up a pristine used hardback for $10, compared with $30 on the US site. Not sure about import taxes, but thought I'd mention it in case anyone is looking for one. Only two chapters in, but I like it so far. Good call! Thanks!

HSW down about 25% since August. Did the summer not live up to market expectations?

And on top of that you have the complication of Turkey, a NATO country, actively helping Azerbaijan... Not sure the West wants to go there given Erdogan is trying to distract the unhappy populace by reopening border disputes with Greece (another NATO member), and also has the ability to threatening Europe with refugees. Although I agree the West seems to be unfairly ignoring it.

Depends on the location, and what the alternatives are, at least for taxable accounts: For example, I live in France. The French have a flat 30% tax rate on dividends. Therefore, for the most part, doesn't matter which stocks I buy, I'll still pay 30% one way or another. Just some variation on who and when I pay. For US stocks, with W-8BEN, I pay 15% withholding tax (with a tax credit), and pay the remaining 15% (so 30% total) to France a year later. For UK stocks, I pay 0% withholding, but 30% to France the next year. So only difference with US stocks being who gets the tax, and I benefit from an extra 15% for a year. Since I'll pay 30% one-way or another, my choice is really about where the returns come from (after-tax dividends and/or price appreciation), rather than US vs. non-US. To give another example, in Ireland, as far as I know, dividend income is considered under income tax. Therefore, anyone earning above €36,800 would essentially see their dividends taxed at 40%, so again, in that case, its a matter of looking at returns rather than US or non-US (as 0%, 15%, or 30% withholding wouldn't really matter). However, if your local tax rate is 0%, and you could avoid that 30% friction by choosing non-US stocks (all else being equal), then it would make sense to take that into account.

La Baule on the west coast of France. Direct TGV from Paris. Amazing beach, lovely Belle Époque architecture. Nice clifftop walks / cycle trails and small hidden coves too.

Doesn’t answer your question, but Croatia is actually already in the EU, and will adopt the Euro next year.

Added some ALCO.

I would say, as an argument to justify extreme wealth, I think it potentially has merit. Though, I think it is more that people get compensated based on the value attributed to their contribution to society, by society, rather than based on the value of their contribution to society i.e. capitalist society values bankers more than teachers, though an alternative society, where, teachers are extremely well paid is conceivable, though unlikely. For instance, yes, some people argue that it is ludicrous that Cristiano Ronaldo is close to being a billionaire, for kicking a ball around a field, while nurses may struggle to buy a house. However, millions of people pay to watch Ronaldo, he provides countless hours of joy, and millions buy his shirts. Therefore, arguably, his earnings are justified as he provides more value than the nurse. Similarly, it could also be used to explain why lazy bums are broke. However, I think it is a little dangerous to veer too far from the extremes, as there is an underlying implication that people get what they deserve, which although sometimes the case, is not always the case. For instance, some extremes are pretty clear cut: Bezos, Rockefeller, Ford, Gates etc. either changed industries, or provided products everyone used. Although, they may not have originated the ideas, or acted completely ethically, they provided the products, so a few shekels commission from everyone is arguably justifiable. Whether rewards should be capped is another story. Multi-generational, sit-on-their asses, broke social welfare scrounges. Possibly not fair in terms of chicken-egg, cause-effect, personal circumstances etc., but fair in terms of value-add. However, it's a little more complicated to argue that Buffett (even though I love the guy) or Bernard Arnault have contributed the same value. Although it has merits (pensions etc.), great capital allocation is a little obvious in terms of value-add to society, than a product on every shelf or desktop. Buffett himself admits that he would have zero value-add on a desert island. And then you have the middle, where it gets very murky e.g. value of a teacher vs. a senior civil servant. In particular, if that latter has been promoted to their level of incompetence (Peter Principle), and may be doing more harm than good. Even nurse vs. doctor, when sometimes the nurse does all the donkey work, with a doctor needing to just sign off. Hard to say the differences in rewards here are based on relative value add. In particular, when you get into specifics. Also, there is a difference between value add, and potential to add value. By this I mean, sometimes its a winner takes all world. Many things in life are due to being in the right place at the right time. Replay the scenario again, and the outcome may remain the same, but the players may change. For instance, I think Mauboussin quotes a study, where participants are asked to listen to songs from a selection of songs. When participants do not know what other participants listen to, there most popular tracks were randomly distributed. However, when participants can see what other participants listen to, the most popular tracks became clustered. So from one perspective , Beyoncé is richer than an unknown singer, because she provides more value to millions of people than the unknown singer. However, from another perspective, millions of people listen to Beyoncé because millions of others do, because of some random chaos/path dependence, not because she possess more inherent value-add. Similarly, you have the percolation model. Take a chequerboard, with varying amounts of black and white cells randomly distributed across the board. If you want to cross using black cells only, the probability of success is only 20%, until you hit a tipping point of 59% of black squares, then it jumps to 80%. Same thing kind of applies with discoveries etc., where a critical mass of pre-existing technology is necessary for something to happen. Uber.... simple idea, but wouldn't work until you had smartphones, 3/4G, etc. But as soon as you had those technologies, amazing value add was unlocked. Are the outsized rewards for the person who adds the last piece in the jigsaw completely deserved? Arguably yes, arguably no. Same when you get to great idea, shit implementation e.g. Ray Croc vs. McDonald brothers. Arguably, no McD without Croc. However, would Croc have achieved anything without the McDonalds. Facebook vs. MySpace. John Logie Baird invented one of the first TVs.... but not sure he made any great fortune from it. Contrast that with people with better business acument like Gates. Then you have externalities. As someone else said, the guy who discovered antibiotics wasn't rewarded according to the value provided. Worse, some Indian pharmaceutical company is probably cleaning up peddling generic antibiotics to people in developing countries where they are used as blanket panaceas without prescriptions (probably same problem in US agriculture). Thus, reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics for all. Therefore, someone is arguably becoming wealthy while providing negative value to society. Same with any Tragedy of the Commons type situation. Opioid pandemic? So kind of a long winded way to say, it depends !

Hermès (French luxury goods). Unmet demand, pricing power, family ownership, Arnault wanted it badly etc. Though main reason is a little more irrational… thought about buying in 2010, didn't, and it’s bothers me every time I see a store. Need to finally tick it off on a decline so I can walk the streets / airports of Paris (where I live) in peace

On a slightly related topic - anyone ever travel Business with a baby (12-18 months old)? Is that frowned upon? Hoping to fly from France to China this Fall with our 16 month daughter. Usually just go Economy, but tempted to go Business to make the journey less painful. However, would feel bad for the other passengers if the little relaxing Business bubble was invaded by a screaming child.

I mainly get Apartments for sale nearby where I live in Paris. I do Google Real Estate stuff from time to time, so my ads seem relevant at least.

Living in France, couldn't find it on the local channel, OCS, which usually shows HBO stuff. So did a little Googling, and found it on Putlocker...