Bad Investor

When we’re young, we feel like we can become anything and do anything — the possibilities seem endless. As adults, however, it feels like there may be a time to let go of all you could have been in order to focus on what you still can become. This feels like what it means to become an adult, but this may just be one aspect of that.

Bitcoin is inherently anti-inflationary — only 21 million BTC are supposed to ever be mined. This is unlike fiat currency and even unlike gold, because precious metals can continue to be mind as prices rise. Bitcoin is almost the ultimate anti-inflationary asset as the vast majority of BTC have already been mind and the overall Bitcoin-related miner and developer network has so far been conservative and prudent. This may not continue in the future, but it bodes well so far.

The new unemployment claims numbers are out - let’s take a quick look at a bit of an unpleasant uptick this week. It likely doesn’t mean too much, but it’s something to remain cautious about.

Sometimes you’re just saving for a vacation (idiotic thing to do in my opinion), sometimes you’re saving for a house, and sometimes you’re just saving to build up wealth — in each circumstance, your time horizon is different. If you fail to take your time horizon(s) into account when investing your money, you’ll fail at investing. Don’t make the foolish mistake of thinking all investing is the same because investing for different time horizons requires different tools, techniques, and mental frameworks.

As slimy and terrible and snake-like some of our current politicians are, we’re lucky to have the ones we’ve got because it could be far worse. What if Mitch McConnell was replaced by a full on Trump sycophant who was only thinking about the next election? Mitch isn’t doing that — his current actions may hurt the Republican Party in the short term, but that’s not what he’s about right now. Or, probably more correctly, for a brief instant, Mitch’s interests are aligned with those of the broader US.

The Senate acquittal of Donald Trump on his 2nd Impeachment prevented a new precedent from being set - one in which a non-President is convicted and “removed” from office (and barred from holding office in the future), which makes little sense. We don’t need more and new precedents in US politics now.

Yes - any sane and decent person likes to see Big Wall St. get some of their own medicine by the likes of WSB. However, a long term and prudent approach would make us think twice about the effects of such speculation. In the short term, it’s fun and even a good thing. In the medium term, it’s ambiguous. In the long term, however, more speculation will lead to greater inefficiencies in the market and can cause capital allocation errors.

Without love, capitalism can’t work for the long term. That’s because although capitalism seems like the best approach so far, there are inherent negativities that come along with it — one of these negativities is the dehumanization of people in capitalist societies. We can easily compensate for this, however, by recognizing our common humanity, thinking clearly, and adding a dose of love into the mix. Here’s the link to the YouTube video that inspired this episode a bit: https://youtu.be/L1AHyiJFoMs

In the early stages of wealth-building, working like an animal to accumulate more capital is key. After a while, however, things change and more balance is required once you accumulate a certain level/threshold of money.

The demand side is not truly important, because societal wealth growth only comes from innovation and the bringing of costs down. That only can happen on the supply side. If you truly see things from a first principles perspective, the demand side can almost be ignored.