“Stay at home is still the norm for Americans,” I observed in yesterday’s Daily Reckoning. “but it’s a norm that is slowly fading. Every billion-dollar tick of the government debt clock, every expansion of the government’s regulatory apparatus, every overreaching judicial decision made in the name of a compelling public need,…every intellectually tortured discovery of a new meaning in the Constitution’s 4,400 old words leaves a few thousand more people wondering how prudent it is to consign all their eggs to a single national basket.
[Read more...]Bar Stool Wisdom from São Paulo
May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“One cannot overestimate the importance of that hotel bar,” says veteran journalist Mort Rosenblum in his handbook for foreign correspondents, Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting.
The basic idea is that local intelligence has a remarkable tendency to collect in little pools in hotel bars where travelers and locals mix. You can learn a lot on a bar stool talking to a local or even chatting with another traveler just blowing through who you might not get otherwise.
[Read more...]Bar Stool Wisdom from São Paulo
May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“One cannot overestimate the importance of that hotel bar,” says veteran journalist Mort Rosenblum in his handbook for foreign correspondents, Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting.
The basic idea is that local intelligence has a remarkable tendency to collect in little pools in hotel bars where travelers and locals mix. You can learn a lot on a bar stool talking to a local or even chatting with another traveler just blowing through who you might not get otherwise.
[Read more...]Is It Time to Buy a House?
May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Is it time to buy a house? Maybe…
This morning we received a bouquet of flowers. It was from the woman who just sold us a house in Baltimore. She sent the flowers to say ‘thanks.’
“We must have paid too much,” we said to Elizabeth. ”She likes us. She probably figures she was lucky to find such retarded buyers.”
[Read more...]Is It Time to Buy a House?
May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Is it time to buy a house? Maybe…
This morning we received a bouquet of flowers. It was from the woman who just sold us a house in Baltimore. She sent the flowers to say ‘thanks.’
“We must have paid too much,” we said to Elizabeth. ”She likes us. She probably figures she was lucky to find such retarded buyers.”
[Read more...]The Missing 13th Floor
April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“About eight years ago, I was going down the elevator of a hotel in Las Vegas with a friend of mine,” Arnaud Karsenti told me. “The elevator skipped the 13th floor. And my friend said to me, ‘How come there is no 13th floor? What a bunch of wasted space!’”
The lack of a 13th floor comes from the same fear that prevents people from walking under ladders or causes them to shiver when a black cat crosses their path. But Arnaud decided to make a business out of it. The idea is to find value where others fear to go.
[Read more...]
Protecting Your Assets from an Out-of-Control Government, Part II
“Stay at home is still the norm for Americans,” I observed in yesterday’s Daily Reckoning. “but it’s a norm that is slowly fading. Every billion-dollar tick of the government debt clock, every expansion of the government’s regulatory apparatus, every overreaching judicial decision made in the name of a compelling public need,…every intellectually tortured discovery of a new meaning in the Constitution’s 4,400 old words leaves a few thousand more people wondering how prudent it is to consign all their eggs to a single national basket.
[Read more...]