TBB Best of Web: Investing Must Clicks, John Bolton Expose, We Need Diversity, Smartphones Are Cigarettes

We bring you the TBB Best of Web links: Two awesome articles about investing that are must clicks, we go deep into a John Bolton expose, why we need diversity to survive and thrive, the reasons why smartphones are like cigarettes and need regular detox sessions and we end with an amazing inspirational speech by Patti Smith advising the young about life in general!

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Every Sunday I pick the best reads that blew my mind in the previous week. It can be…anything! I like to be eclectic and despise salesy/clickbait/sameold content you read…everywhere else!

As always, click on the headline to be taken to the original source. Sometimes I insert my incendiary comments on article excerpts between [brackets].

 

Nothing Happens, Then Everything Happens

If you take the time to read this, you will realize why it appears here on a Sunday Best of Web post. Because I save the best for days like today!

…investing, where mostly smooth growth is occasionally interrupted by violent fluctuations.  Morgan Housel said it best when he compared investing to being an airline pilot:

Ninety percent of the job is uneventful to the point of automation; ten percent of the job is terrifying and requires complex skills and a flawlessly calm demeanor.

There is some nifty chart work on display. Not sure how the author does this…consider me impressed.

…the U.S. stock market has been characterized by fits and starts throughout its history. For example, while decades like the 1950s, 1980s, and 1990s were mostly filled with growth (i.e. bull markets), the 1970s and 2000s contained large price fluctuations (i.e. bear markets).

Yeah, yeah, it’s about the long run, yada, yada, you all heard that before. In the long run, remember that we are all dead 🙂 We have been blessed here in the US…instead over in Japan:

The big run-up in Japan starting in the mid-1980s led to a period of massive overvaluation that still has not been surpassed to this day (i.e. the high watermark is unchanged). It took over 300 months for the Nikkei to reach the bottom from its top in the late 1980s.

But what I liked most about this post is how it ends:

We all go through hardships. We all go through stress. But, we also experience periods of relative calm. It’s the shift between these states that makes life worthwhile. What would life be without struggle and overcoming obstacles? It’s in overcoming these obstacles where we receive our greatest returns. They say that it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. Don’t forget this as you approach each and every day. First nothing happens, then everything happens.

John Bolton: Trump’s Shrewd National Security Adviser

It is amazing how many freaks are in the Trump administration. And how the few worthy ones have already left. And we now have this asshole making decisions What a weirdo smh #notafan.

He is now the most important figure in American national security, and because his position requires no Senate confirmation, he answers to no one but Trump. With the departure of James Mattis as secretary of defense early this year, Bolton is, incredibly, the only senior security official close to Trump who has seen how a normal White House works. (He has served in every Republican administration since 1981. Most Trump appointees have never served any other president.) Bolton’s return to power has allowed him to pursue his great passions in life, which are outmaneuvering his adversaries, foreign and domestic, and getting America out of treaties. (“So many bad deals to kill,” Bolton once wrote, “so little time.”)

It’s difficult to exaggerate how hard it is to earn a reputation as a dick in Washington. It’s like being known as a real nerd by fellow scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or as the resident prude by sisters at a nunnery. In Washington, boorishness can be a virtue, if the boor in question is on your side and gets things done. (Witness the admiration for Lyndon B. Johnson, who would sit on the toilet and summon aides to talk policy while smelling his fumes, and the contempt for the pious Jimmy Carter.) But Bolton is almost universally known for being off-putting and ill-tempered. “One of the world’s cheapest people,” says an ex-colleague. “An extremely unpleasant person,” says another. [ASSHOLE!]

The North Koreans still consider Bolton “scum.” [This may be the most positive thing going for him LOL]

The Stormtrooper Problem: Why Thought Diversity Makes Us Better

Well, I have no illusions that my blog will change anyone’s views. But damn it, it’s my blog and I can blog what I want woohoo!

The opening of the article makes it clear what it is about and by the end if you do not subscribe to this…what can I say? No soup for you!

Diversity of thought makes us stronger, not weaker. Without diversity we die off as a species. We can no longer adapt to changes in the environment. We need each other to survive.

Diversity is what makes us stronger, not weaker. Biologically, without diversity we die off as a species. We can no longer adapt to changes in the environment. This is true of social diversity as well. Without diversity, we have no resources to face the inevitable challenges, no potential for beneficial mutations or breakthroughs that may save us. Yet we continue to have such a hard time with that. We’re still trying to figure out how to live with each other. We’re nowhere near ready for that meteor.

Cal Newport on Why We’ll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

Look around you. Look at yourself. You can’t put your cell phone down! It’s like we are zombies…

So, this very insightful interview hits home!

Here is one Q&A to get an idea what this is about…

You talk about how we’re always ceding our autonomy to these devices. I understand the immediate implications of that—you’re not being intentional with your time, you’re not in control of how you use it—but what are some of the long-term ramifications of always craving that constant hit of stimuli and distraction?

You get actual lasting changes to your brain chemistry. Now you have a brain that needs stimuli just to get back up to normal. Just like the drug addict: after a while it takes more and more drugs just get back to normal.

If you train your brain, “I always have to have stimuli. I can’t be bored for a moment,” you’re gonna have both professional and social ramifications. Professionally, it makes it very difficult to concentrate without distraction. I wrote a whole book about this called Deep Work that makes us log arguments for why it’s really valuable in our current economy to be able to focus very intensely. So to train yourself out of your ability to do that is sort of like economic self-sabotage.

Personally, it can be impoverishing. Not just in a way that it takes time away from things that are more important, but when you’re doing things in your personal life, you extract much less value out of them, because you can’t sustain presence or attention. Going out for a drink with a friend is not as satisfying as it might have been 10 years ago, because you just have this itch the whole time, “I gotta check [my phone].”

Stock Market Returns Over Different Time Periods (1872-2018)

The animation in the chart is just brilliant, must click!

Always remember that in the long run we are all dead and in the short run (like just one year) ANYTHING is possible okay?

And a bonus link for you. How about something inspirational, this time from Patti Smith to all the youngsters out there!

And I leave you with this…

TBB
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