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Apex Money Posts

10 Surprises From the First Half of 2023

2023 has been a surprising year on a variety of fronts, and our first post collects quite a few of them in the financial sphere:

10 Surprises From the First Half of 2023 [Charlie Bilello’s Blog] – “In December 2022, nearly everyone was in agreement: the U.S. economy was either already in a recession or headed for one in 2023. The list of indicators said to be predicting a recession was a long one, including a falling stock market, historic lows in consumer sentiment, and the inversion in the yield curve. But as Yogi Berra famously said, it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. And halfway through 2023, we’re still waiting for the recession prophesies to be fulfilled.”

I’d never heard of baby bonds before but with Connecticut now offering them, I found this explainer to be quite informative!

Baby Bonds: A Guide To Saving For The Future [Kid Wealth] – “Baby Bonds are government-sponsored savings accounts for newborns. The idea is that each newborn would receive a seed deposit from the government, which would grow over time thanks to compound interest. The funds in the account would be available for the child to use when they reach a certain age, typically 18 years old, for expenses such as education, buying a home, or starting a business.” I hope this idea expands!

Why Do All American Diners Look Like That? They’re modeled after (train) dining cars! (so fun!)

Woulda, coulda, shoulda

I’ve long been a fan of the regret minimization framework. I learned about it in a video with Jeff Bezos and it’s stuck with me ever since.

Turns out it’s supported by science:

Woulda, coulda, shoulda: the haunting regret of failing our ideal selves [Cornell] – “Our most enduring regrets are the ones that stem from our failure to live up to our ideal selves, according to new Cornell research.”

35 Words of Wisdom You Will Never Forget [Lolly Daskal] – “Here are 35 of wisest truth, if you can make them part of your daily life and never forget them, you are well on your way to cultivating a life that you have always wanted.”

Here are the Economics of Broadway:

Why are houses so expensive?

Well, we’ve made it to the end of another week. Hurrah! But before you go on your merry way, I’ve collected four last stories to share with you. Here they are.

Why are houses so expensive? [Of Dollars and Data] — “Home prices will always be based on the same thing—supply and demand. So if we want less expensive homes, we either have to increase supply, decrease demand, or do both. Unfortunately, finding effective ways to do this (without negative consequences) is the hard part.”

Money has become ‘numbers on a screen’. [The Belle Curve] — “Dealing with money is less tangible today than at any time in the history of money…Over the past 10 years, I’ve found fewer and fewer reasons to carry cash, let alone withdraw it from the bank. It sometimes feels like money is nothing more than numbers on a screen.”

“I have become the rich relative.” [Bitches Get Riches] — “Is this whole article just a flex? A humble-brag? You bet your shapely ass it is! More than any other financial milestone — becoming debt-free, buying a house, saving my first $100,000 — being able to easily provide for others makes me feel like I’ve made it.”

Investing for money vs. investing for happiness. [Money with Katie] — “I should clarify two things right now: Spending more will absolutely result in you having less money, or, at the very least, the same amount of money, but later. And that’s okay, because the point isn’t to accumulate as much money as possible (or even to be financially independent as quickly as possible), but to achieve the most total cumulative happiness.”

That’s it for today. I’ll be back in ten days to share more good stuff with you. Jim will be here on Monday. Take care!

How to do great work.

Today is Thursday, my friends, and I’ve collected some interesting articles about personal finance to share with you — just as we do every weekday here at Apex Money. A couple of these are longreads, but they’re worth it…

How to do great work. [Paul Graham] — “One way to aim high is to try to make something that people will care about in a hundred years. Not because their opinions matter more than your contemporaries’, but because something that still seems good in a hundred years is more likely to be genuinely good.”

The impossible paradox of car ownership. [Vox] — “Anyone who has ever struggled to afford a car, or lived without one, knows how complicated life can get without access to a vehicle. Car ownership has always been expensive, but recent trends suggest that it is getting worse. New car prices have risen so much that purchasing one is quickly becoming out of reach for many buyers.”

Confessions of a luxury-wedding planner. [The Atlantic] — “I was used to my wealthy clients thinking they could bend reality to their will, but I got truly taken advantage of only once. The bride called us to say that she and her younger sister were both getting married in the same year at the same venue. For what seemed like obvious reasons, she did not want to work with the same planner as her baby sibling. I quoted her our rates and there was silence. Her sister’s planner, she said then, was cheaper — something like $12,000 less. To which I replied: Good for your sister!” [My brain hurts after reading this.]

I recently read (twice) music producer Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Never in my life have I read something that so closely captures my way of thinking. The philosophy Rubin outlines so closely mirrors my own current philosophy that I found it eerie. It was as if he were in my head.

Anyhow, I didn’t know much about Rubin before reading The Creative Act (my girlfriend gave me the book for my birthday because she thought I’d appreciate it), but I’ve since taken some time to read more about him…and to watch YouTube videos like this one where he explains how to stop overthinking.

“It doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.” It took me 54+ years to reach this understanding, but I’ve reached it. My entire 2023 is built around that idea.

Here’s a motto I’ve tried to live by for the past decade: Do your best. Do what’s right. Accept the outcome. That’s basically what Rubin says in this clip. I love it.

Anyhow, that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow to take you into the weekend…

The economy’s doomsday clock.

Welcome to Tuesday, Apexians! I’ve got some super interesting stuff for you today. Take a look.

The myth of moral decline. [Experimental History] — “If you think that morality is declining, then you must think that some switch has been flipped in society, causing it to produce worse humans. No doubt you would want to un-flip that switch, whatever you think it is: smash the social media companies! Kill all the politicians! Ban the bad books! None of that is going to reverse the trend, because the trend doesn’t exist. It’s like activating the sprinkler system in a building that’s not on fire.”

The economy’s doomsday clock has been reset. [Business Insider] — “Despite the year-plus in which analysts have been arguing that a recession is imminent, none of the arguments behind the predictions stand up to scrutiny. And there’s only so long one can keep claiming that the recession is just six months away. Given the increasing number of reasons to be upbeat on the US economy, it’s time for the recessionistas to admit defeat. The economic doomsday clock has been reset.”

Don’t forget to swim now and then. [Raptitude] — “This praise for the caveman days might sound like romance or sentimentality. I won’t pretend I want to live naked in the woods. But when you consider how differently those concrete, premodern activities feel from corralling words on a screen, entering spreadsheet formulae, or parsing a dozen news headlines in the space of a minute or two, it’s clear that there’s a categorical difference between doing what humans have been attuning to for a hundreds of thousands of years, and doing what we’ve been doing only a lifetime or two. It’s the difference between a fish swimming, and a fish operating a hover vehicle.”

Today’s video features a Grammy-winning fifty-year-old song that I first truly heard while on my recent Arctic cruise. I was sitting in the lounge sipping whisky one night when “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” by the Temptations came playing over the speakers. Holy cats!

This song is amazing. But no wonder I’d never really listened to it before. Music like this was never my jam when I was younger. But it’s totally my jam now. I’ve come to truly appreciate funk music. And this is about as funky as they come.

Enjoy.

The folks from Plutus will be here tomorrow. I’ll be back on Thursday.

How Mr. Beast became the Willy Wonka of YouTube.

Hello, friends. It’s me, J.D., back for my first live Apex edition in a couple of months. My recent installments were prepared before I took off for my epic month-long journey to Scotland, Norway, and Iceland. That trip was amazing, and it really helped me to get clear on what I want to do with the rest of my life. Mentally and physically, I’m in a great place right now. Yay!

Anyhow, I’m back to curating stories for Apex Money. Today’s installment is a few hours late, yes, but I should be on time for the rest of the week. Let’s see what I’ve gathered for you today…

“My e-bike changed my life.” [Slate] — “Since I bought this fairly inexpensive transportation device in 2021, I’ve ridden hundreds upon hundreds of miles, each of them replacing a mile I would once have driven in a car. I’ve taken uncountable trips to the grocery store, and scores of rides to the office or the Metro or to meet friends for a night out…My e-bike has changed my life. I’m happier, healthier, and more active. My relationship to my community has been completely transformed. I guess I’ve become an e-bike guy. You can, too.”

Electric bikes are the most climate-friendly way to travel. [Triangle Blog Blog] — “After traveling 4,500 miles, I have spent less than $5 on electricity. Five dollars! That’s less than a cost of a mocha latte something at Starbucks. That is astounding. That’s less than the cost of two gallons of gas. It means that on days I bike the 10 miles to and from work, I’m spending less than one cent on electricity to get there.”

“My father’s death in seven gigabytes.” [Wired] — “My father’s last decade was one of relentless downsizing, from apartment to assisted living to nursing home, shedding belongings, throwing away clothes and furniture. And at the end: Two boxes and a tiny green urn. The ultimate zip file. After I parsed and processed and batched his digital legacy, it came to 7,382 files and around 7 gigabytes.”

How Mr. Beast became the Willy Wonka of YouTube. [The New York Times Magazine gift article] — “Donaldson has built a YouTube empire on this kind of quasi philanthropy…The phenomenal popularity of these videos has made him a superstar by any measure and cemented his reputation as a secular saint among the YouTube faithful, but it has also left him open to the criticism that his generosity is more calculated than heartfelt — another audience-development strategy alongside the garish thumbnails and finely tuned video titles.” [I enjoyed this.]

To close things out today, here’s my favorite YouTube video from the past two months. It’s a nine-minute look at how one couple moved into (and remodeled) a vacant house in the Japanese countryside.

As a man who loves Zelda games and Hayao Miyazaki films, there’s something intensely appealing about what this couple has done. It’s like Totoro in real life, you know?

Okay, that’s it for my first day back. I’ll return tomorrow with more interesting stuff for you…

Airline Status

I just discovered this site, called Airline Status, that lets you buy frequent flyer status. They get them from companies who overestimate what they need for their employees and you benefit by getting perks for $99 – $399 every quarter. It’s fascinating and I’ve never used it so I can’t speak to its legitimacy… but it looks legit.

We have no affiliation with them, I was just surprised that after years of being a blogger and traveler, I’d never heard of them.

OK onto the first article – there is such a thing as being too rich and it’s sad.

How To Stay Rich: The Gettys [Digital Party] – “When we think of the Gettys, we generally think of people who made the characters of Succession look like one big, happy family. Perhaps you remember the story: when J. Paul Getty’s 16-year-old grandson was kidnapped by Italian gangsters in 1973, Getty refused to pay the ransom even after they cut off the boy’s ear (he claimed this was to discourage criminals from kidnapping other members of his family). Eventually he negotiated the demands down from $17 million to $3 million. Finally, under threat of further mutilations, Getty begrudgingly paid just $2.2 million (apparently the amount he was told was tax deductible), and loaned his son (the boy’s father) the remaining $800,000 at four percent interest.”

Fun story about a two handed bowler who may also be the best to have ever done it!

The Man Who Broke Bowling [GQ Sports] – “When he first alighted on the scene, Belmo, as he’s known to his fans, resembled an alien species: one that bowled with two hands. And not some granny shot, to be clear, but a kickass power move in which he uses two fingers (and no thumb) on his right hand, palms the front of the ball with his left, and then, on his approach, which is marked by a distinctive shuffle step, rocks the ball back before launching it with a liquid, athletic whip, his delivery producing an eye-popping hook, his ball striking the pins like a mini mortar explosion. Not everyone welcomed his arrival. He’s been called a cheat, told to go back to his native Australia; a PBA Hall of Famer once called the two-hander a “cancer to an already diseased sport.””

Enjoy your weekend!

8 Life Lessons I Wish I’d Known Sooner

8 Life Lessons I Wish I’d Known Sooner [Entrepreneur] – “Now that I’m in my 40s, I look back at my younger self and recognize how much unnecessary suffering I created for myself by not knowing these eight simple truths. I learned these life lessons the hard way. Discovering them transformed my entire existence. Today, I share them with you.”

Did We Predict the S&P 500 Bottom?! [Money With Katie] – ““The market is a forecasting mechanism. It’s forward-looking; it tries to predict what the economy will be 6–12 months from now. The market bottoms first, earnings bottom second, and the economy last.””

How To Maintain a Sense of Purpose as a Retiree [Physician on FIRE] – “After spending decades in the workforce and working forty or more hours a week, retirees may find it difficult to find purpose in daily life. This transition can be challenging, as individuals often define themselves by their careers, and suddenly they are faced with an abundance of free time and no clear direction.”

This last one is a ten year old video on wealth inequality that is probably fairly accurate even today – I guarantee it will amaze you:

Numbers on a Screen.

Happy Wednesday Plutus Family! Enjoy!!!

Check out what we have for you this week.

Numbers on a Screen. [The Belle Curve] — “Dealing with money is less tangible today than at any time in the history of money. Paychecks are directly deposited into bank accounts. Bills are paid automatically online. Debit and credit cards can be used everywhere (even in NYC cabs), and we are quickly adopting the use of Apple Pay, Venmo, and Zelle for a variety of transactions…. It sometimes feels like money is nothing more than numbers on a screen.” (Submitted by J. Money.)

#92. “I Hate Work! I Just Want to Retire!” [The Sytch] — “It’s completely understandable why this is the case. Working 8+ hour days in work you do not value can leave you mentally and physically exhausted.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

Ranked: Things vs. Experiences vs. Things That Keep Creating Good Experiences. [My Money Blog] — “The benefit of material goods is that they don’t go away after the experience ends (food is eaten, cruise ends, etc). The best material goods are those that keep generating new positive experiences and memories.” (Submitted by J. Money.)