#BLUFFbooks Podcast

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — “Trillions” (p. 2021) by Robin Wigglesworth:

Subtitle: "How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever"

Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

 
💡1. Tell Me What You Quant… (Bill Sharpe, Wells Fargo & the origin of index investing for institutional clients). 🧮 📈 🏦

 
💡2. Bogle Me This… (Jack Bogle, Jack Brennan, and low fee retail index investing for average joe) ⚓️👷🏼‍♂️📈

 
💡3. Along Came a SPDR… (Nathan Most, the American Exchange, the Toronto exchange, and the birth of the ETF). 🕷️🇨🇦📦📈

 
💡4. Getting it Dunn (Patricia Dunn, WFIA, BGI, and iShares making a diverse and vibrant market for ETFs). 🌎📦📦📈

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — "A Financial Declaration of Financial Independence" (p. 2008) by Josh Gilliam, CKA 

Subtitle: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Holiness"

 Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

💡1. I Volunteer as Tribute! (We let shopping malls extort us worse than the British ever did). 💳👑 What is the "crown" of popular culture?

 
💡2. Chasing the Dragon (We crave ever-greater quantity/variety of stuff to achieve ephemeral happiness). 🐲💉. We cannot defy natural law indefinitely by trying to substitute physical stuff for spiritual meaning) 🎣💕

 
💡3. "Yes Officer, My Virtue Signal Is Broken" (Beware of greenwashing and slacktivism). 👮‍♂️☮  Many people try to use “spiritual credibility” to project competency and build trust to win business. […] It’s not as important for an advisor to tell you he or she is a Christian as it is for he or she to demonstrate Christian principles.

 
💡4. FIRE = Just a New Idol? — Exchanging spiritual dependency on job income for spiritual dependency on investment income. ‍👦 Do we really give out of disciplinee, let alone faith?

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — “Financially Irresponsible" (p. 2019) by Rahkim Sabree, AFC

Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

 
💡1. You Are What You Think (The cancer of a victim mindset).

 
💡2. “A Powerful Jedi You Seek, Hmm?”(Finding and paying wise mentors)

 
💡3. Paycheck to Paycheck? (Beware of lifestyle creep).

 
💡4. Your Credit = Your “Baseball Card” (Work on your financial batting average!)

 
💡5. Preserving The Kingdom (Funding Your Retirement & Educating The Next Generation).

#BLUFFbooks 📚 — “Nudge: The Final Edition:” (p. 2021) by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein

Subtitle: "Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, & Happiness." 

Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

 
💡1. Homo Economicus?: Humans are not purely rational creatures - we're all highly influenced by our (very uncertain) personal environments.

💡2.  Think Fast! - We rely on cognitive heuristics to react to sudden danger & conserve mental energy. But such biases can produce very flawed decisions.

💡3. Choice Architecture: "We make the room, and the room makes us." There's no such thing as an "influence- neutral" environment.

💡4. Libertarian Paternalism: Requiring folks to use their reflective, higher-level thinking skills to consciously "opt in" if they really want the "unhealthy" option.

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — “The Art of the Sabbatical:” (p. 2024) by Cady North, CFP & MBA

Subtitle: "A Money and Mindset Guide for Your Next Work Break." 

  💡Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

 
🧠 1) Sabbath Rest: An ancient idea for a timeless human need.  
🧠  2) Your are not your job: resetting boundaries & reevaluating goals.  
🧠  3) Packing Your Bags & Burning The Boats: Preparing - and committing- to your sabattical.  
🧠  4) Failure to (Re) Launch? - Coming back right when the time is right. 

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — “Thank God For Bitcoin” (p. 2020) by Derek Waltchack, Gabe Higgins & Jimmy Song, el al. 

Subtitle: "The Creation, Corruption and Redemption of Money." 

  💡Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

 
🧠1) What IS Money? (A store of value, medium of exchange, divisible, recognizable, scarce, etc).

🧠2) No Inflation Without Representation? (How governments debase themselves by debasing their currency).

🧠3) Spend Money Like Its Going Style? (How inflation fosters a hedonistic, materialistic culture).

🧠 4) When Churches Are Slaves to Lenders (selfless ministry becomes selfish business)

🧠 5) The Wrong Rx for a Correct Diagnosis? (Kicking the tires of Bitcoin).

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” (p. 1973, 4th edition in 2016) by Burton Malkiel, PhD

Subtitle: "The Time-Tested Strategy for Personal Investing.” 

  💡Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

🧠1) "Castles in the Air" -- Do we rely on fundamental analysis or technical analysis (AKA "charting") in order to pick stocks?  The famous "Keynesian beauty contest" thought experiment has some interesting implications.

🧠2) Can’t Beat The Market — The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) says that the price of any publicly traded asset will rapidly adjust to reflect all currently available knowledge concerning it. But beware, while bubbles (i.e. housing circa 2008) do eventually pop - the market might stay irrational far longer than you can remain solvent!

🧠3) Buy & hold — Your biggest enemy when investing…is the man in mirror. Its' often better to automate monthly contributions to mutual funds that reflect major indices like the S&P 500.

🧠 4) “No Pain, No…” — A spoonful of risk is good (necessary even) for your investment portfolio to grow. Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) though says you should try to buy securities with inversely correlated returns.

 #BLUFFbooks 📚 — "Misbehaving" by Richard Thaler, PhD (p. 2015)

Subtitle: "The Making of Behavioral Economics" 📊🤑

 💡Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

🧠 1. Humans vs. Econs (Normal people usually don’t make the most rational choice).

🧠 2. Sunk Costs (Even academics doggedly cling to the things & theories they’ve invested in).

🧠 3. What a Ripoff!! (Fairness, Utility Value & Transaction Value)

🧠 4. A Matter of Principal (Narrow Framing, Hindsight Bias, & the Principal-Agent Problem).

🧠 5. Tilting the Pool Table (Thaler & Nudging)

#BLUFFbooks 📚 — "The Index Card" by Helaine Olen & Harold Pollack  (p. 2016)

Subtitle:  Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated

 💡Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

📇 1. Avoid Unforced Errors - Just do the basics (401k match, index investing, not shopping, etc). 

📇 2. Life Comes At You Fast - Don't kid yourself, you or any member of your household can become old or disabled. 

📇 3. Beware of Products You Don't Understand - A fiduciary advisor will educate you, not pressure you.

📇 4. Safety Nets Still Give Ropeburn - We should all be grateful for social security, food stamps, & medicare. But they're meant to be a last resort. 

#BLUFFbooks 📚 —  "The Financial Empowerment Handbook" by David Gatchell (p. 2013)

💡Big Ideas Below: ⬇️

Subtitle: “The Comprehensive Guide to Financial Literacy and Personal Prosperity." 

Big Ideas: 

 💡1. Nobody Can Care About Your Education (more than you do).

💡2.  Borrow = Sorrow? (Navigating the minefield of personal credit).

💡3.  Shop Before You Drop (Your cash on a major purchase).

💡4.  A Failure to Plan (is a plan to fail!).

 💡5. Be a Savvy Job Hunter (Like the Mandalorian!)