The Well-Read Investor

We have a real treat today—someone perfect for this program. Our guest is Aaron Anderson. He’s the author of two investment books, but much more importantly to me he is a fellow member of the Investment Policy Committee here at Fisher Investments, a longtime colleague of mine, and one of the sharpest investment minds I’ve known.

We talk about his outlook for markets, books, and the importance of communication in investing. Aaron doesn’t just write well, he’s an accomplished speaker, and great at creating compelling and easy to understand visual presentations. He fits the right information and message to his audience, and can explain the abstract and complex concepts as effectively to novices as to experts. You can’t just be a good investor to be very successful in this industry—you have to articulate and constantly tell your clients what you’re up to and why. Communication is the secret sauce that creates lasting client relationships—which is essential for great investing strategies to reach their long-term goals.

Today we have Eisner award-winning comics artist, author, and educator, Nick Sousanis in to talk about his book, Unflattening.

How to explain this strange book? Well, written and drawn entirely as a comic book, Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking using graphic art to illustrate the ways we construct knowledge. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, the book uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points. Full of graphic innovation, Unflattening is meant to counteract the type of narrow, rigid thinking that Nick calls “flatness.”

The book has received numerous awards and has been translated to many languages. Nick’s work has been featured in The Paris Review, The New York Times, the LA Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Publishers Weekly, to name a few.

Nick is also just a great and humble guy who I enjoyed speaking with immensely. So let’s get into it, and I’ll come back with some additional commentary on what to make of this wide-ranging conversation. Enjoy!

Today we have award-winning scientist, author, educator, and film producer Sean B. Carroll with us to talk about the role of chance in biological life with his newest book, A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You.

Randomness and chance of course play a role in just about everything, and especially investments. But there’s wide debate about just how much of life and market results are defined by randomness and how much of those are truly within our control. The greatest scientists and philosophers of our age continue to wrestle with that issue (they always will, of course), and while we won’t solve those deep life mysteries for you here, Sean’s perspective on chance at the foundational level of biology—how randomness affects our very DNA—will make you think differently. This is a wide-ranging discussion about dinosaurs, viruses, DNA mutation, and so much else. Investors should pay close attention—while imperfect, analogies of markets to biological systems are well worth considering.

Remember to find us on Twitter @wellreadpod and Instagram at @wellreadinvestorpod or just google the Well Read Investor to see what I’m reading, reviewing, and talking about week in and out. And as always, may all your reading profit your mind and your money.

This week we have Arnold Kling on the show to discuss his book The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides. Now in its third edition, it’s a short little guide to navigating ideology and tribalism in today’s politics.

Politics is of tremendous importance to investors—it defines the rules by which we operate, individual and company alike. So we must pay attention to politics as it has meaningful impacts to entire economic systems let alone individual industries. But when it comes to how markets move we have to leave ideology at the door. Markets do well and poorly through time with Republicans and Democrats alike in power; favoring one side or the other leads to investing mistakes. What matters ultimately is what politicians do, not what they say. There’s always tons of talk about grand ideas and huge programs—but the truth is they rarely come to fruition in the way lofty rhetoric envisions on both sides. Even more, politics is a global issue for investors, not just a US one. So thinking critically about not just your own ideology, whatever that might be, but out the nature of these conflicts in general is of great usefulness.

Ok, we’re on Spring Break! We’ll take a couple weeks off and come back to you in May with more challenging and exciting authors to make you a well-read investor. Until then, we wish you a wonderful and healthy spring, and as always, may all your reading profit your mind and your money. Take care.

This week we’re discussing Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich: How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World, with authors and professors Deirdre McCloskey and Art Carden.

Since we started the podcast now more than a year ago, we’ve had esteemed guests from a variety of fields, but having Diedre McCloskey on is special. In my humble opinion, she’s one of the best living economic historians, and a tremendous writer whose led a fascinating life. The book we’re discussing today is an accessible, highly literary, and often humorous entry into her perspectives—a sort of cheat sheet version of her essential work she calls the Bourgeois Trilogy, a magisterial and highly literary set of three books aiming to explain human freedom as the driving catalyst for accelerating world prosperity in the era commencing with the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and beyond. And the addition of Professor Art Carden to this mix is also a treat—both are witty, amazingly well read, and forceful in their views, which can be at times controversial but always inviting of other perspectives.

And on that note, if you like what you’re hearing make sure to follow us on social media. We’re on Twitter @wellreadpod and Instagram at @wellreadinvestorpod or just google the Well Read Investor to see what I’m reading, reviewing, and talking about week in and out.