Things from my Newsblur; 2018 Part III

Time for another edition of “Things from my Newsblur”.   Our Man has recently been thinking a lot about how to use time more productively, so today’s edition begins on that note.  It soon diverges into more lighthearted fare including LaCroix flavors and the Muppets.   As usual, the most investment-related stuff is at the end. 

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

Anthropologist David Graber has just published a book – “Bullshit Jobs” – that stems from this article written 5-years ago.  After the article’s publication, hundreds of people across the world reached out to Graeber to talk about their white collar bullshit jobs!  Our Man will let you guess which of Graeber’s 5 categories - Flunkies, Goons, Duct Tapers, Box Tickers, and Taskmasters – he might fall into!  (David Graeber, Strike Magazine)

For those who’re curious about the book; Nathan Hellers, in the New Yorker, has a good review.

Maker vs. Manager: How Your Schedule Can Make or Break You

Most office jobs impose the same work rituals on people, yet different types of work require different types of schedule.  This concept was originally described by Paul Graham of Y Combinator in 2009.  He defined the two broad types of schedule – Manager and Maker.  The Manager’s schedule reflects the traditional appointment book, with the day broken up into blocks (typically of an hour) and meetings pre-set for these blocks.  The Maker’s schedule is less fixed and the units are larger (perhaps half-a-day), since you can’t write or think or program or even analyze an investment well in units of one hour.  As office jobs have consistently migrated to the Manager schedule, how do people whose job consists of both Managing and Making adjust?  What about those who are Makers in a Manager-styled firm?   The secret is in creating and defining your schedule, especially setting aside dedicated time for the Making even if that is at odd (i.e. very late night) hours.   This is something that Our Man is wrestling with as he thinks about investing (Maker) and ‘working’ (Manager, as it entails some investing, but mostly internal meetings, responding to clients, presenting, dealing with legal/tax/etc. questions, and all the other things that surround investing).  (Farnam Street Blog)

What’s the Most (and Least) Popular LaCroix Flavor?

Our Man is no fan of fizzy water, but he does live in Brooklyn where LaCroix is a thing!  Like Oat Milk is a thing!  Yeah, Oat Milk!  I know, people are weird!  So for all you Brooklynites, and fizzy water fans, here’s some research on the most popular LaCroix flavors.  (Pricenomics, and Oh My Green) 

It’s Not Easy Being Evergreen: An Oral History of the Muppets

The Muppets started as adult-focused entertainment on variety shows, before hitting the big-time on kid-targeted Sesame Street.  They eventually secured their own show in the late 1970s, but it was produced in England after no US network was willing to take the chance.  Despite numerous efforts, including recent movies (quite successful) and a 2015 TV show (not so successful), they have no hit the same heights since.  (Studio 360, Slate)  

Why Doesn’t Anyone Answer the Phone Any More

The headline says it all – unless you’re in OM’s contacts, the chances of him picking up the phone are almost exactly zero!   Sure, over the last decade Whatsapp, iMessage, WeChat, Twitters, Facebook, etc., have all become alternative ways to communicate.  However, the answer is simpler; spam and robocalls.  Answering these only ensures you’ll receive yet more of them!  (Alexis C Madrigal, The Atlantic)   

Facebook’s Gollum Will Never Give Up Its Data Ring

The recent debate about Facebook and ‘your’ data has largely missed the point.  Facebook doesn’t sell ‘your’ data, it merely leases it!  What folks should be more worried about is how it gets that data; by seeking to capture as much attention of as many people as possible, in just about any way possible.  The leasing of data from this, well that’s just how it monetizes you.  (Azeem Azhar, NewCo Shift)

Azeem is also the curator of the excellent free weekly Exponential View newsletter; let OM know if you’re interested in finding out more!  

The Luck of a Gecko

OM is in the midst of writing a blog post about his investment philosophy, and it’s thus timely to share this old article (2013) with you.  The article looks at the impact of GEICO on Benjamin Graham’s and Warren Buffett’s Success.  In particular, it’s the investment that Ben Graham (the father of value investing) built his reputation on; the profits from GEICO were larger than those from all of his other investments combined.  It’s also an investment where Graham broke numerous of his own investment rules; “the one company for which Graham threw out the playbook was also the company that accounted for most of his success”.  (Mark Hebner, Index Fund Advisors)

For those after a longer, and more detailed analysis, read the Wedgewood VIC presentation from 2013.

Things from my Google Reader; 2016 Part I

It’s been an exceptionally long-time since Our Man posted a “Things from my Google Reader”, so here’s a bumper edition.  Hopefully, the wait will not be so long in the future!

- The Spy Behind the Plane that Saved Britain 
In the skies over Britain in 1940 the Spitfire turned the tide against the Nazis, but only a handful of people knew that it owed its edge to secrets cribbed from Germany.  (Clive Irving, the Daily Beast)

- The FBI vs FIFA 
Football is the world’s game, and it wasn’t exactly a secret that FIFA, the governing body, was corrupt.  Yet, it took the Americans to get the sport to start to clean up its act – maybe we should start calling it ‘soccer’ out of gratitude!   Just kidding!  But here’s ESPN with the in-depth story about how the FBI brought down FIFA! (Shaun Assael & Brett Forrest, with Vivek Chaudhary, at ESPN)

- What the iPhone has done to cameras is completely insane 
 File this one under things you know, but are still stunning to see (especially in graphical form).  How badly do you think camera sales fell, following the iPhone’s introduction in 2007?  Roberto Ferdman looks into it, and it’s uglier than you thought (well, uglier than OM thought at least).  (Roberto Ferdman, Washington Post).

- Taxi, Uber and Lyft usage in NYC 
The TLC provides regular usage data, and Todd Schneider made life easier by collating it all and taking a look.  You know what to expect, but seeing it in graphical form always helps confirm things; Uber up, taxis down, Lyft still trying.   (Todd W. Schneider, at his eponymous blog)

- Will self-driving cars lead to grade-separated cities? 
What will real self-driving cars (think more the Google version than the fake Tesla version) mean for cities?  Well, the folks at MIT’s Sensable City Lab had a look at the future of traffic lights, and predict their days may be numbered.

BREXIT 
 It’s been the biggest thing in Our Man’s homeland since sliced bread, and though the world hasn’t (yet) ended it’s certainly been shaken up.  Rest assured, Our Man has lots of thoughts on Brexit and related things, but you’re likely to be saved from most of them (though Our Man probably won’t be able to resist writing one post, and no more, on the subject).   In the meantime, here are some of the few things Our Man has actually found worth reading on Brexit (and related things) in the aftermath.

- Calm Down: The Brexit Result is not a 21st-centurySarajevo 
For those worrying about Armageddon, hopefully reading this helps you back away from the ledge.  (David McWilliams, Irish Independent)

- Evolution not Revolution 
While newspapers & politicians want to talk about about immigration, the date indicates it was 'sovereignty' that drove the Leave vote.   Ideally, this should inform the British negotiations, and the Adam Smith Institute make the case for the EEA option.  (Adam Smith Institute)

- The 2.8million Non-voters who Delivered Brexit 
An interesting analysis of where the polling went wrong (spoiler alert: turnout models) and the large cohort of ‘new’ voters that it largely missed.  Ascertaining who they are isn’t the hard part, but what do they want and will they vote again is much harder?   Secretary Clinton better hope that Donald Trump isn’t as successful at finding them.  (Matt Singh, Bloomberg…though he’s normally found at the excellent Number Cruncher Politics) 

- Brexit: A disaster decades in the making 
You do not have to agree with the author’s viewpoint (that it’s a disaster) to appreciate that there’s some really good stuff in here about the long-term issues that led to the lack of trust/faith/etc in the establishment (and both major political parties). (Gary Younge, Guardian)

- How Remain Failed: the inside story of a doomed campaign
- How David Cameron blew it 
It wouldn’t be a political campaign, without the post-mortems…after all mistakes were made and there's more than enough blame to go around!  (Rafael Behr, Guardian and a number of folks at Politico.eu, respectively)

Back from Vacation

After a rather delightful sojourn to see friends and family in London, and then on to a couple of Greek Islands (including the one of Chios, where we got to enjoy a friend’s traditional Greek wedding), OM and Mrs. OM are back from their summer vacation. 

It goes without saying that we arrived back (on Friday 27th August) just in time to see the portfolio’s worst daily performance since inception (-1.35%) as a combination of a good GDP downgrade (!) and a Bernanke speech helped buoy the markets and setback the grinding lower of Treasury yields.  While not a vast amount happened in terms of price action while we were away (equities were mildly lower and even with Friday’s widening, Treasury yields had compressed marginally) it does seem that the incremental macro data points that have been coming out are slightly more negative.  With the month having just ended, I’ll save more information on performance until the monthly review.

However, since I’ve spent much of the last few days catching up on reading (via my Google Reader) here are some of the interesting stories that caught my attention:

- Japan and the Ancient Art of Shrugging: Some thoughts on Japan’s lost decade(s) impact on the younger generations (Norihiro Kato, NY Times)

- Bernanke’s Blind Spot: My favourite economist’s critique of the Fed Chairman’s Friday statement (Steve Keen, Business Spectator)

- Friedrich Hayek’s Nobel Prize Lecture in 1974: it shows a prescient understanding of his profession’s failings. (Friedrich August von Hayek, Nobel Prize Website)

- The Magic of Procrastination: A Behavioural Finance Professor’s way of solving the behavioural biases/issues regarding when students’ do the work they have to turn in.  (Dan Ariely, his blog!)

- Roads Gone Wild: About Hans Monderman, who’s leading the charge to turning 80-years of traffic engineering on its head and taking advantage of behavioural biases in doing so (Tom McNnichol, Wired)

- On the Shoulders of Giants: Could Spain, if it embraces structural reform, be the next Germany? (Edward Hugh, Credit Writedowns)