Perfectionism in some areas often ends up as a net negative to overall life. You have a project, like a writing project. You can have an 80% (or even a 98%) solution in two months, or a 100% solution in a year. Time is life. Get it done and move onto the next project.

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To be ambitious is to imply that “you’re not there yet.” But suppose there is no gap in your mind. That you’re perfectly content with what you have. Has ambition ceased? If you want a certain state to persist, you will no longer have an ambition to accumulate, but rather an ambition to preserve. Being perfectly content with your current state means that you’ll desire what you have now, and wherever there is desire, there is ambition.

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You need to move beyond a rational return analysis to understand why poor people play the lottery. The average American living in the poorest 1% of zip codes spends $600 a year, or $50 per month, on lottery tickets. Assuming they bought tickets for 30 years, their total lottery spending would’ve been $18,000. If they had saved that money in cash instead, this means they could’ve had an extra $50 per month for 30 years in retirement.

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101 additional pieces of life advice from 72-year-old Kevin Kelly who recently wrote the book: “Excellent Advice For Living: Wisdom I Wish I Had Known Earlier.” A few favorites:

• There is a profound difference between thinking less of yourself (not useful) and thinking of yourself less (better).
• Forget trying to decide what your life’s destiny is. That’s too grand. Instead, just figure out what you should do in the next 2 years.
• Interview your parents while they are still alive. Keep asking questions while you record. You’ll learn amazing things. Or hire someone to make their story into an oral history, or documentary, or book. This will be a tremendous gift to them and to your family.
• Asking “what-if?” about your past is a waste of time; asking “what-if?” about your future is tremendously productive.
• Discover people whom you love doing “nothing” with and do nothing with them on a regular basis. The longer you can maintain those relationships, the longer you will live.
• Humility is mostly about being very honest about how much you owe to luck.

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Net share issuance (the amount of new stock being issued vs. how much companies are buying back) is shrinking at the fastest pace in 25 years:

A look at the Hedonic Treadmill and why our obsession with improvement is making us miserable. The instinct to improve our circumstances is a functional one in a society where resources are scarce. The problem arises when those who objectively already have enough — and ample time and money — are constantly marketed endless goods and opportunities.

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It is extremely difficult to stay in line with positive behavioral finance strategies because we’re wired to do the opposite. If it was easy it wouldn’t work because everyone would be doing it.

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The importance of being present and strategies on how to do it better including Forecasting Nostalgia: when this chapter is over, what will we have missed?

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Of the five major sports, the one with the greatest amount of luck involved in wins and losses is hockey. Luck plays a more important role when there are less chances to score.

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Car insurance premiums have been skyrocketing due to car and auto parts prices rising, drivers getting worse, and more vehicles being damaged by storms. Even with the increase in premiums, the payouts have been higher for private insurers the last few years.

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Great interview with Scott Galloway where he lightly discusses some of the topics of his new book, The Algebra Of Wealth, before going into a deeper, introspective conversation about his personal life in his 20s, 30s and 40s. He talks about the mistakes he made and the things that were worth it.

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It’s well understood how Fed rate hikes slow areas of the economy (real estate transactions, consumer loans and small business loans), but they also stimulate the economy in other ways. Bloomberg discussed it this week noting: the jump in benchmark rates from 0% to over 5% is providing Americans with a significant stream of income from their bond investments and savings accounts for the first time in two decades.

The government’s debt has ballooned to $35 trillion, double what it was just a decade ago. That means those higher interest rates it’s now paying on the debt translate into an additional $50 billion or so flowing into the pockets of American (and foreign) bond investors each month.

US households receive income on more than $13 trillion of short-term interest-bearing assets, almost triple the $5 trillion in consumer debt, excluding mortgages, that they have to pay interest on. At today’s rates, that translates to a net gain for households of some $400 billion a year.

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Bonds and stocks started moving together recently (stocks falling in price while bond interest rates rise meaning their underlying value falls). This is a new phenomenon for most investors (including me: I’m only 41). However, the graphic below shows that from 1940 to 2000 stocks and bonds moved together the majority of the time:

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A higher price to earnings ratio means a country’s stock market is more expensive. A lower number is less expensive. It’s the price you are paying for the earnings of the companies.

Average of Foreign Developed Markets: 20
Average of Foreign Emerging Markets: 15

United States: 33

Source: Meb Faber – Cambria Funds

Being Content vs. Being Complacent. Complacency is when you lack or deny awareness of potential dangers. It prevents growth. Contentment is feeling satisfied — at peace with what you have today. But it doesn’t stop growth. You can be content while still wanting to be better.

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How Much Is Luck Involved vs. How Much Is Repeatable? In business and investing, you want to learn the big lessons about why things behave the way they do without assuming the past is a direct guide to the future, because it’s not – most of the details are not repeatable. History is the study of change, ironically used as a map of the future.

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Self-reflection is pointless unless the person in the mirror is you: not the person you wish you were, but the flawed and fallible person you are. Instead of relying on all available information, we jump to sweeping conclusions from fragmentary data. We think vivid events are more frequent than they are. We overestimate our own experience and expertise. We anchor on irrelevant numbers, exaggerate our successes and forget our failures.

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Q&A With Ed Thorp on diet, exercise and managing risks in life. Ed wrote the original book on beating blackjack at casinos (“Beath The Dealer”), then created one of the most successful hedge funds in history (he recently wrote a great book about his life called “A Man For All Markets”).

I read a great book last month called “Fluke” that goes into extraordinary detail on how much luck (or flukes) impact everything in the world.

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Bill Perkins wrote a book called Die With Zero that has had an enormous impact on my life over the last few years. In this video interview he provides a great analogy on trying to get the order of things correct in your life:

Life is like Tetris…Let’s say you’re in heaven and you’re about to be born and God is like, “Here is the infinite bucket of experiences. Choose what you would like on your adventure.” And you’re like “Okay. This sex thing seems interesting…okay I wanna ride a bike. I wanna get a job. I wanna graduate. I think I wanna get married and have kids. Strip clubs? That seems interesting. I’ll throw in a couple of those.”

God goes, “Okay you can have them all on one condition—you have to get the order right.” So the people that do the marriage thing and have kids and then put the strip club afterwards don’t kind of get the high score. Because it interferes with it…or they put the heliskiing Mt. Kilimanjaro at 86. It’s kind of in the wrong spot, right?

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Insurance companies are taking pictures of our homes from the sky. Nearly every building in the country is being photographed, often without the owner’s knowledge. Companies are deploying drones, manned airplanes and high-altitude balloons to take images of properties. The array of photos is being sorted by computer models to spy out underwriting no-nos, such as damaged roof shingles, yard debris, overhanging tree branches and undeclared swimming pools or trampolines. The red-flagged images are providing insurers with ammunition for nonrenewal notices nationwide.

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Rangan Chatterjee speaks with Laurie Santos on The Happiness Lab Podcast, and they discuss why (and how) physicians like him are making happiness a priority for health.

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Why We Hate Waiting In Lines – It produces two conditions that humans hate: boredom and lack of autonomy. To compound these problems, time seems to slow down when you’re waiting for something.

Losses Are Much More Painful Than Gains: Examples from the financial markets, tennis matches and TV late-night hosts.

Global Price to Earnings ratio for United States stocks (incredibly expensive) vs. everything outside the United States (inexpensive). My portfolio (heavily weighted toward foreign stocks) is betting that the alligator jaws will close at some point in the future:

Some additional context to the chart above from Cliff Asness this week in Barron’s:

“Since the early 1990s, about 80% of the U.S. dominance has come from relative price/earnings multiple expansion versus non-U. S. stocks. People were paying less for the U.S. at the beginning, and now they are paying considerably more. Maybe that is justified; maybe things like U.S. tech dominance are real. But justified doesn’t mean repeatable. Justified at best means something isn’t going to reverse in a big way. Looking to the future, the case that the U.S. will have permanently higher equity returns is pretty untenable. Even if U.S. companies are worth it, they are priced as such.”

It’s not just foreign stocks that are cheap relative to U.S. stocks. The ratio of commodity prices to the S&P 500 is at historic lows:

A snapshot of how expensive U.S. stocks are relative to the most expensive moment in history (2000), second only to 1929:

Why Good Sleep Fixes Most Things & How To Sleep Better

Fun chart ….

50% of the US population lives in the blue counties (148)

50% of the US population lives in the orange counties (2,998) pic.twitter.com/OHI9kaHHtQ

— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) April 1, 2024

The Riddle Of Happiness: True happiness cannot be contingent upon any notion of satisfaction. Because to be satisfied is to imply an endpoint. A goal. And as the hedonic treadmill illustrates, once there is a goal, the logical conclusion is to create another chase to distract you. This distraction may keep you amused and busy, but once you’re faced with silence, you will be afraid of what you may feel. The only way you’re happy is when the thought of pursuing it ceases. When you’re content with whatever you’re doing, regardless of how it’s going or what the results may be. You are happy when there is no goal to hit because you understand that the pursuit of that goal creates the endpoint of satisfaction, which is never the answer.

32 Things Learned By Age 32, Including: Sympathy is a useless emotion. Feeling bad for someone does nothing for that person. It only makes you feel better about yourself. You know what is useful? A simple acknowledgment and a gesture of support. Something like, “I know you’re going through a hard time, and I’m thinking about you. Want to [insert activity that person enjoys] together?” The last thing somebody needs when they’re struggling is to comfort your discomfort for them.

The Female Happiness Paradox: 11 surveys of 167 countries and finds that always and everywhere, regardless of how the question is asked or what measure is used, women say they are more anxious, more depressed, more tired and more pessimistic than men. They are less likely than men to recall smiling or enjoying themselves the day before and are more likely to say they are stressed, lonely, restless and worried about their finances. Women typically report more chronic pain and poorer health and are more likely to take antidepressants. And yet: Women everywhere are still more likely than men to say they are happy and satisfied with their lives. In Gallup World Poll surveys of 167 countries between 2005 and 2021, women from Australia to Saudi Arabia typically rated their lives as high if not higher than men.

There Are Hidden Costs In Almost All Life Decisions – Work, Time, Relationships, Purchases & Trying To Impress Others

Since the pandemic, many of the most popular economic indicators with impeccable track records stopped working. Two of the most famous, the inverted yield curve and the leading economic index, have been flashing trouble for years while the overall economy has stayed strong.

One of the biggest reasons the economy continues to surprise is the massive amount of government spending/stimulus:

Just be a savage. These days, if you are even remotely a savage and you get out there and you grind hard and you want it badly enough, you can run by anyone. It is all out there for the taking, especially in this era of remote work. There has never been more opportunity out there than there is today. And for the companies and investors looking to excel and outperform? Start by finding these savages.

Not All Lifestyle Creep Is Bad – Spending More On Health Improvements and Buying Time

5 Insights From The Excellent New Book: “Look Again: The Power Of Noticing What Was Always There.” (The book is currently free to listen to if you have a Spotify subscription)

Half Of College Graduates Are Working Jobs That Don’t Use Their Degrees. More than any other factor analyzed—including race, gender and choice of university—what a person studies determines their odds of getting on a college-level career track. Internships are also critical.

The Jobs Market Is Signaling Trouble If You Look Deeper Into The Numbers – Podcast With Chris Puplava

Pensford Finds Similar Jobs Data Trouble In Their Letter This Week

The U.S. Produces More Crude Oil Than Any Country, Ever

We always hear how the United States stock market capitalization is concentrated in the Magnificent Seven, but other countries have a far higher concentration:

A.I. has already begun to increase productivity for companies, a trend that will likely continue as we move forward:

In the absence of strong convictions about what you want from life, you will always default to wanting more money. It’s the lowest common denominator of desire in a society with any semblance of upward mobility. The key to escaping this cycle is first establishing your priorities (family dynamics, geography, lifestyle, whatever), and then figuring out how to get there financially. Our problem is that we tend to let income determine desire.

The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring Of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic Of Mental Illness

40 Things Lessons At Age 40 (I Wish I Knew When I Was 20)

The Crypto Mania Is Back Again. A Possible Reason Why The Younger Generation Continues To Come Back: Financial Nihilism

Succumbing To Recency Bias Can Be Dangerous When Investing

GMO Discusses Global Markets, Climate Risks and Chemicals:

We’re heading toward a world where couples all meet online:

Being Born Into The Wealthiest Country On The Planet Is The Equivalent Of Winning The Genetic Lottery

Sports Betting Is The Gateway Drug To Other Forms Of Gambling On Betting Apps Like DraftKings & FanDuel

Emerging Market Debt Significantly Outperformed Emerging Market Stocks Over The Last 30 Years

Why Smart People Can Make Dumb Decisions

Results From A Study On Zero Tolerance Alcohol Laws For Kids Under 21 – “We find that Zero Tolerance Laws led to significant improvements in later-life health. Individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence were substantially less likely to suffer from cognitive and physical limitations in their 40s. The health effects are mirrored by improved labor market outcomes. These patterns cannot be attributed to changes in educational attainment or marriage. Instead, we find that affected cohorts were significantly less likely to drink heavily by middle age, suggesting an important role for adolescent initiation and habit-formation in affecting long-term substance use.”

Lakers’ LeBron James is the first NBA player to score 40,000 points. James scored his first 10,000 points in the exact same number of games as it took him to go from 30,000 to 40,000 – 10K in 368 games – 10K to 20K in 358 games – 20K to 30K in 381 games – 30K to 40K in 368 games.

Using Dishabituation To Increase Happiness & Enjoy Experiences More

Lyn Alden’s Newsletter On The Economy, Inflation, Interest Rates, Markets & The Fed

Avoiding Burnout & A Mid-Life Crisis. Life tends to follow a U-shaped curve of happiness, bottoming in your mid 40s:

Bad Things Pile Up As The Years Go On

Why It’s Better To Book Early Morning Flights – Avoid Stress, Cancellations & Save Money

Due To Soaring Home Prices, Builders Are Creating Tiny 400-Foot Home Neighborhoods

Alcohol use has dropped for everyone, except middle-aged women.

ChatGPT Is For Doing, Not Searching, & Here’s What It Does Best Right Now: Writing, Summarizing, Recommendations, Mentoring & Projects

U.S. healthcare spending and the results.

One quick note on the graph above. I’ve read/heard that one of the biggest reasons America’s average lifespan is so low compared to other developed countries is due to the enormous number of young men that are killing each other (mostly with guns) in the United States. Those (young) deaths pull the average down significantly.

Some of the pandemic darlings are still down 76% or more:

Why Appliances Break Down More Often Than They Used To – When a complicated machine fails, technicians say they have a much harder time figuring out what went wrong. Even if the technician does diagnose the problem, consumers are often left with repairs that exceed half the cost of replacement, rendering the machine totaled. In the majority of cases, buying a new one makes more economic sense than repairing it.