Apex Money Posts

Understanding Cryptocurrency’s Celebrity Craze [Variety] – “While it should be anticipated that some celebrities will continue to accept the easy cash from potentially shady NFT and crypto products for some time to come, attention should be paid to how they are being paid. If it is in equity, the product is likely legit. Equally, the involvement of celebrities and brands in crypto philanthropy will continue, as the sums generated will continue to grow and leaders look to invest back.”

Comparing Two Blowups [The Irrelevant Investor] – “I keep coming back to this theme that things feel a lot worse than what’s revealed by looking at how far the S&P 500 is from its all-time high. One of the primary reasons, and there are several, is the number of stocks absolutely blowing up. The names coming undone were the darlings of the pandemic, and so we’re particularly sensitive to their unraveling. And the speed at which they’re doing it is breathtaking.” Fascinating to see how much money is still flowing in… is that good or bad?

This is so much fun:
How the Savannah Bananas have become the greatest show in baseball [SportsCenter]

Insurance is what you buy when you want peace of mind. We pay our insurance company for various policies (auto, home, umbrella, etc) and hope we never have to use it.

An emergency fund is similar – it’s a waste of money until you need it. Then you are thankful you have it!

Having an Emergency Fund is a waste of money – until it isn’t. [Burning Desire for FIRE] – “The Emergency Fund is a funny beast. In my experience, I can go for YEARS without tapping into it, to the point where it almost feels like a waste having all that money just sitting there earning next to no interest. Then WHAM! Something happens. Or two things happen. They seem to come in waves.” A great reminder.

How to File a Life Insurance Death Claim – 4 Step Guide for a Beneficiary [Money Crashers] – “Filing a life insurance claim is a four-step process. Under normal circumstances, expect to wait up to 30 days for the life insurance company to process the claim. After that, you’ll receive the death benefit, a request for additional information, or an explanation of why the insurer denied the claim.”

Oh dear… 😂

My Heart Will Go On (but it’s Smash Mouth’s “All Star”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJNKzfoYvM&ab_channel=ThereIRuinedIt

It’s still unpleasant. And we all hate it. But it turns out our much we hate it depends on our age.

Loss aversion across the ages [Klement on Investing] – “But look at the change in this loss aversion factor relative to the age of the participants. Younger people aged 18 to 24 exhibit a loss aversion coefficient somewhere between 3 and 4 as do people aged 65 and over. But people in the midst of their working lives (aged 35 to 54) tend to have much lower loss aversion, somewhere between 1 and 2.” In other words, and the chart on the page illustrates this quite well, is that we are more loss averse early in life (18-24) and later in life (65+) than we are in the middle (35-44 and 45-54). Fascinating!

Would you buy hot food out of a vending machine? I think I’d try it.

The hamburger vending machine has arrived [Axios] – “A company called RoboBurger sells a machine that will make you a burger with custom toppings — from “grass and vegetarian fed 100% Angus beef, always antibiotic-free, raised with no artificial growth hormones” — in 6 minutes for $6.99.” Would you buy a hamburger out of a vending machine? It sounds crazy but is it really going to be worse than one being made by a kid making minimum wage?

I love this rule of pints.

Happy St Patrick’s Day: This is the rule of pints [CODE] – “Next we come to one of the foremost junctures in the rule of pints: having two pints doesn’t exist. To have two pints would be a waste of time. It would be to fail oneself.” Beautifully written and 100% accurate.

Happy Friday! And have a great weekend!

This is a week of Tweet threads I loved… latest one comes from Ed Latimore, another athlete (former heavyweight boxer), about the lessons he learned living in public housing projects:

I grew up in the public housing projects and learned some hard lessons so you didn't have to.

Here are 11 things I learned from growing up in the hood, surrounded daily by crackheads, gangbangers, poverty, and death.

Thread

— Ed Latimore (@EdLatimore) April 18, 2022

#7 about trauma is the one that really resonated because it gets to the idea of life and fairness. When you’re in the struggle, you don’t have time for the “woe is me” or “life is unfair.” When you’re working through something hard, do the work and worry about the other stuff later. That only gets in the way of the work.

Left your job or old 401(k): Now what? [Mile High Finance Guy] – “Months ago, I would often get asked the question, “What should I do with my old 401(k) plan?” At the time, I was working full-time as a retirement planner for one of the US’s largest brokerage and investment advisory houses. Now, many people think you have to roll over a 401(k) plan once you leave a job, but to the contrary, the question (generally) is whether you should roll it over. And importantly, the answer will never be the same as it is dependent upon your unique situation.” A solid guide on what to do with an old 401(k).

11 Things Fiscally Responsible People Do [Five Year Fire Escape] – “Today we’re going to talk about being fiscally responsible. Wait! Don’t run away! The way I see it, this topic should not only be reserved for boardrooms occupied by uptight managers in suits. Becoming financially-savvy should be the norm amongst people young and old who are committed to achieving financial freedom or general awesomeness.”

When I first did my taxes, now over twenty years ago, it was easy. These were the olden days when you had to enter in the information on your Form W2 into TurboTax (or whatever program you used). It was free. It was easy.

But as the years passed, it became less free and that was, in part, because my tax situation got more complicated but also by design – tax prep companies want to make more money. Turns out the FTC has something to say about that…

The Turbotax Trap [ProPublica] – “ProPublica has long detailed how Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and other companies have worked against making tax preparation easier and less costly. They have lobbied to ban the IRS from offering free, simple tax filing and deceived customers who should qualify for the Free File product.”

The mystery of the miracle year [Dwarkesh Patel] – “An interesting pattern recurs across the career of great scientists: an annus mirabilis (miracle year) in which they make multiple, seemingly independent breakthroughs in the span of a single year or two.”

Life Advice from NYC Chess Hustlers [Cafe Anne] – “The chess tables in Washington Square Park’s southwest corner have been occupied by a revolving cast of hustlers for more than 80 years. When a CAFÉ ANNE reader suggested I interview these fellows for a feature, I asked what she wanted to know. Boy, did she have questions! “How often do people win? Do they compete against each other? What were they doing before this? Or is this like a side hustle!? I mean seriously WHAT IS THEIR DEAL!?!?!?!?””

I’ve long believed that the path towards wealth is building up multiple streams of cashflow (mailbox money) and dabbling a bit in moonshots. I hadn’t thought about influential businesses… Ndamukong Suh (he’s an active NFL defensive tackle too) had a thread last year that was really good in explaining how it all tied together:

Over the last decade I've shadowed some of the best business minds on the planet.

From Warren Buffett to Stephen Ross, the one success framework they all share is "mailbox money".

It's a financial state of mind.

And here's how it sets you up for growth 🧵

— Ndamukong Suh (@NdamukongSuh) November 12, 2021

Rags-to-Riches Stories Are Actually Kind of Disturbing [The New York Times Magazine] – “From Horatio Alger and E.L. James to T. Boone Pickens and Charles Koch, books by and about the ultrawealthy reveal some of our darkest American fantasies.” I don’t remember reading any of Horatio Alger’s books but I found this recap of their (very) dark side quite fascinating. By the way, it’s been a while since one article has contained so many new words for me… for example, the word “bildungsroman” doesn’t look like a real word, yet it is.

Lindbergh Kidnapping [FBI] – “On a beautiful 390-acre estate on the rural outskirts of Hopewell, New Jersey, Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne hoped to stay out of the constant glare of the media spotlight in the years following the aviator’s historic non-stop flight across the Atlantic. It was not to be. In 1932, a crime took place that stunned the nation and made the Lindberghs and their ensuing tragedy front-page news for months to come.”

I’m friends with several people who, to varying degrees, are famous on the internet. They’ve given talks in front of thousands of people, they sell a variety of courses, and they’re very much in the public eye.

You could say that every single one of them has a public persona and a private one. The two will have some overlap but the public persona is the one that most people are familiar with. The amplitude on certain characteristics is heightened.

Turns out, either by accident or by design, this is a good strategy:

The ‘Batman Effect’: How having an alter ego empowers you
[BBC] – “How do the world’s top stars muster the poise and determination to stand on stage, despite the nerves and anxiety of having a bad performance? For both Beyoncé and Adele, the secret has been the creation of an alter ego.”

I love slow travel. I didn’t know we were doing it when we would visit places for a month during summers when the kids were off school. I 100% recommend it and I fell in love with this post by A Purple Life about Phuket:

Slow Travel Review: Phuket, Thailand – The Land Of Sea & Food [A Purple Life] – “I want to talk about the month I spent living in Phuket, Thailand and give you all the tips and tricks I stumbled and embarrassed myself into knowing 🙂 . Hopefully this will help you in the future if you plan to go to Thailand in general or Phuket specifically.” The photos of the food… drool. 🙂

If You Have This, You Don’t Need To Worry About Losing Your Job [The Making of a Millionaire] – “The emergency fund, of course. And I’m not talking about a 3–6 month emergency fund — though this is an excellent baseline. I’m talking about a 1–2 year emergency fund. If you have plenty of savings to last you, not just for a rainy day but for an entire rainy season, you’re good to go and can relinquish any financial fears about unemployment.” It’s good to make decisions from a position of strength!

This first article is bananas. I can’t believe this place exists.

The Secret Art Gallery Where Millionaires Buy Dinosaurs and Rare Objects [Vice] – “If you had hundreds of thousands of euros to spend on bizarre and exclusive living room decor, where would you go? In the Tuscan town of Arezzo, Italy, there’s a place just for that. The Theatrum Mundi, or “World Theater” in Latin, is an invite-only gallery offering its extravagant but discreet services to millionaires from all over Europe.”

Cabinet of wonders is such a cool idea. I want to make one… but it won’t have super expensive stuff like Wolverine’s claws or a hard hat from Jurassic Park (though both are super cool and I’d do it if I had millions upon millions to spend on such lavish frivolousness!).

The Once-Common Practice of Communal Sleeping [Atlas Obscura] – “Sleep has been a communal activity for millennia. In the days before central heating and alarm systems, bedmates were a necessity. Entire families would pack together on a single mattress (plus guests), servants often slept alongside their mistresses, and strangers frequently shared a bed while traveling.”

How Superstars Can Now Make “Many Millions” Signing Autographs [The Hollywood Reporter] – “The explosion of the superhero genre and reduction of red carpets and fan conventions amid the pandemic have created a new revenue stream for A-listers: private autograph signings.”

The “boring middle” is a really interesting phrase. It refers to that part of a process where you’re kind of in rinse and repeat mode.

You just discovered something fresh and new, so you’re excited. Then there’s a long stretch where you’re just executing and it can seem a bit boring because there’s little novelty.

The Boring Middle [Broke Girl Rich] – “Set goals, contribute money towards goals, repeat for 30-40 years. Make extra money, contribute extra towards the goals, repeat for maybe 20-30 instead. Though, let’s be honest, I work in the arts, so we’re probably looking at that later time frame. And so it’s the boring middle.”

A Brief History of American Money [Go Curry Cracker!] – “Last fall during a trip to Virginia, we stopped into the American Civil War Museum in Richmond. Among the many well-crafted displays was an excellent exhibit on the history of American money and how the currency we know and use today began as a result of the war.” Very cool!

The personality traits of self-made and inherited millionaires [Nature] – “Result 1: The rich are more risk tolerant, open, extraverted, and conscientious, but less neurotic than the general population” Hmmm…

Only one thing to say about inflation – wow.

Consumer prices rose 8.5% in March, slightly hotter than expected and the highest since 1981 [CNBC] – “Headline CPI in March rose by 8.5% from a year ago, the fastest annual gain since December 1981 and one-tenth of a percentage point above the estimate.”

While there isn’t much one can do about inflation, there are some things you can do as a result. Series I bonds are adjusted to inflation, we can expect the I Bond’s new rate to be 9.62%. I say expect but we know that’s what it will be because the equation is known. The only surprise is if the fixed portion changes, which it probably won’t.

I Bond’s variable rate will rise to 9.62% with the May reset [TIPS Watch] – “Based on the March inflation report, which concluded the six-month rate setting period for the U.S. Series I Savings Bond, the inflation-adjusted variable rate of the I Bond will rise from the current annualized 7.12% to 9.62% as of the May 1 reset.”

7 Best Real Estate Syndication Tax Benefits [ESI Money] – “When I first started learning about real estate investing, I thought the only way was to be an active investor or landlord. It wasn’t until attending a conference in Dallas that I realized that were several ways to invest, including passively.”