My father lost thousands of dollars by “investing” in Mexico just before it devalued.
My friend belongs to “the best” angel investors club. He’s lost money on every deal.
To me, you make money when you have
A. Knowledge, and
B. Control.
This week’s Economist is:
Russia is scary and fascinating. This Special Report is totally fascinating. Some excerpts:
+ Reactionary restoration at home has led to aggression abroad. Russia has invaded Georgia and Ukraine, two of the most democratic former Soviet republics. It has intervened in the conflict in Syria, propping up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. It has attempted to undermine Euro-Atlantic institutions, backed right-wing parties in Europe and tried to meddle in America’s presidential election. And it is once again using the threat of nuclear arms to blackmail the West.
After the defeat of the 1991 coup, Russia was widely expected to become a Westernised, democratic, free-market country. This special report will explain why that did not happen, and ask whether the West has a Putin problem or a much deeper and more enduring Russia problem.
+ After nearly a decade of economic growth spurred by the market reforms of the 1990s and by rising oil prices, the Russian economy has descended into Soviet-era stagnation. Competition has been stifled and the state’s share in the economy has doubled. The military-industrial complex—the core of the Soviet economy—is once again seen as the engine of growth. Alternative power centres have been eliminated. Post-Soviet federalism has been emasculated, turning Russia into a unitary state.
+ Good marks are no longer the main prerequisite for getting a good job in Russia.
As you read the Economist’s Special Report on Russia, you will learn a new “Gotcha” — namely Putin. Russia is not a place to invest in.
Please read the entire report. It’s an engrossing explanation of what Putin has done and his seeming motivations. The man is seriously dangerous.
The outsourced software engineer
Last week I lost words for this blog because I hadn’t saved. I had an idea: There are people who know more than I do about WordPress, the software I use for this blog.
I checked around and found a site called Upwork.com. It puts you in touch with talented freelancers around the world. Upwork put me in touch with Attinder Pal Singh in India. and bingo I now have auto-save. Which means that the software Attinder installed automatically saves my work within a minute of my writing it.
Stuff learned
+ The cheapest places to buy bulbs if from 1000bulbs.com and bulbs.com. But don’t stock up on zillions of bulbs. The technology of bulbs are changing every hour. There are incandescent, halogen, CFL (compact fluorescent) and LED (Light emitting diodes). Generally, the bulbs that cost more use less electricity, but not be dimmable or fit into your light fixture. I have a closet full of useless, obsolete bulbs. In short, buy bulbs sparingly. (You guessed correctly. I spent the weekend changing bulbs.) One lesson: MR-16 bulbs come in 12 and 24 volt. This is an MR-16:
+ Hotels and airlines are often more expensive on the “discount” web sites (like Expedia) than on the home pages of the hotels. Airlines treat you miserably if you buy from a discount site, rather than from them. All the car rental clubs — Gold, Silver, Green, Platinum, etc. — give you a “discount.” But it’s miserable. Priceline is best for car rentals. Hotels and airlines can be bargained with on the phone.
+ No one is staying at Trump hotels or playing on Trump golf courses any longer. That’s not true, of course. But many corporations have written Trump hotels off their “approved list for employee stays.
Please don’t bank at Wells Fargo
My friends reports the cross-selling pressures remain. And are decidedly unpleasant, as well as hugely time-consuming. The bank is irredeemable.
Entrepreneurship at its best
A man approaches a bicycle, handheld electric saw at the ready. He powers it on, starts to drill, and is shot in the face with a noxious spray that makes him vomit uncontrollably. This is the dream of the inventors of SkunkLock, a new bicycle lock.
“Basically we were fed up with thefts,” said Daniel Idzkowski from San Francisco, one of the inventors of SkunkLock. “The real last straw was we had a friend park his very expensive electric bike outside a Whole Foods, and then went to have lunch and chat. We went out and his bike was gone.”
Idzkowski’s friend had used two locks, each $120, whose inability to stop a thief outraged him. “I blurted out, `why didn’t it blow his balls off?'”
With the right tools, Idzkowski said, a thief could cut through most locks in less than a minute. Thieves, he said, “talk in seconds: a 15-second bike, a 20-second bike, and it goes up to 30-60-second bikes, with Kryptonite locks that require two cuts, each about 25 seconds”.
With his co-inventor, Yves Perrenoud, Idzkowski created a U-shaped lock of carbon and steel with a hollow chamber to hold one of three pressurized gases of their own concoction, including one called “formula D_1”. When someone cuts about 30% of the way into the lock, Idzkowski said, the gas erupts in the direction of the gash.
“It’s pretty much immediately vomit inducing, causes difficulty breathing,” Idzkowski said. “A lot of similar symptoms to pepper spray.”
Albert Einstein wisdoms
+ The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax.
+ Imagination is more important than knowledge. Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton.
+ Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
+ Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
+ Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; I’m not sure about the universe.
Looking for a great Christmas present?
This is $1850 and truly beautiful.
Breakfast in bed this morning
Susan: If Nansi calls, tell her I’ll call her back. I’m going to the gym.
Harry: It’s not too late to bring me breakfast in bed.
Susan: Yes, it is.
Harry Newton, who offers: If you ever have trouble reading some of the articles I reference, send me an email and I’ll email you the whole piece.
It was a glorious weekend. Look at our backyard tree. The tree is redder than it looks in this photo.
Russia made war on what is now Turkey for centuries.
Now NATO. Do we want to honor NATO Article 5 if Turkey provokes the Bear as it has done since the 1200s? Ouch.
Harry,
When renting cars, try Enterprise. I was a high-loyalty category customer of Hertz for years with supposedly “special” consideration. Tried Enterprise and the low prices and high service blew me away. I only use them now.
If you carry an American Express card check-out their “Premium Car Rental Protection”…$19.95 one time coverage each time you rent a car, not daily, charged automatically when you put the rental on your AMEX card. Most countries.
We lived in New England for many years and enjoyed the fall colors very much…however…if you really want to enjoy awesome fall color take a drive through the U..P of Michigan some fall…beyond belief!