Good morning, Apexians, and welcome to Thursday. I’ve got some good money stories for you today. Let’s dive in.
First up is a podcast sent to my by my ex-wife. I’m not joking! Kris thought this was interesting, and I do too.
Are personal-finance gurus giving you bad advice? [Freakonomics] — “What if the economists have better financial advice than the authors of these books? Wouldn’t that be worth knowing? Choi set out to compare the advice from these books to similar advice from the economics literature. He focused on a set of typical issues, like home mortgages, debt repayment, spending versus saving, investment style, things like that. And he found what he calls “some pretty significant differences” between the economists’ recommendations and the advice in the books.”
The resourceful life. [Ribbon Farm] — “The resourceful person rarely asks is this worth it, because by a rarely questioned default, it always is. Resourceful people have extremely stable commitments to extremely stable goals and desires, by default. It’s not specific goals and desires. They’re that way about all goals or desires. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing.”
The deliberately terrible lunch, the vindictive daffodils, and other petty moments at work. [Ask a Manager] — “Last month I asked about the pettiest things you’ve seen (or done!) at work. There were so many hilarious stories left on that post that I couldn’t fit them all my favorites into one column. Part 1 was here, and here’s part 2.”
The romance scammer on my sofa. [The Atavist] — “You just have to mention the words Yahoo boys to a Nigerian and watch their reaction to understand how deeply embedded scammers have become in the national conversation. A lot of people see them as young men who’ve chosen a life of crime, preying on foreigners and marring Nigeria’s reputation…There’s another side to public opinion, however, one that sees Yahoo boys as young men pushed to the brink by their circumstances.”
A friend asked me for investing advice recently. Rather than offer a sloppy explanation of passive investing in index funds, I sent her this hour-long video of J.L. Collins speaking to the folks at Google.
That’s everything anyone needs to know about how to invest successfully.
Too many people try to overcomplicate investing. Too many people pay others to provide subpar investment results. This really is something you can do yourself — and Collins offers the best explanation I’ve found so far.
Okay, that’s it for Thursday. I’ll be back tomorrow to take you into the weekend…