It appears that some people are using the phrase “the hoi polloi” to mean “the elite” rather than “the masses”. I have never come across a better argument for a classical education. Continue reading
Month: August 2007
Turtles everywhere
I was on holiday last week, which, together with being sick this week, is why things have been a bit slow here. The highlight of the holiday was the invasion of the hotel by 50 or 60 green turtles. Continue reading
Abolish planning laws; solve housing “crisis”
Imagine that the UK had enough housing that every single household occupied a detached or semi-detached house (two thirds of them in detached houses) and all the country’s 12 million currently occupied terraced houses, maisonettes and flats were empty. You might think that to provide so much housing we would need to “concrete over the countryside”, in fact we would need to switch just 2.5% of the UK’s land area to urban residential use. Switching much less would provide a more than adequate supply. Continue reading
The myth of environmental myths
Time for another sample of incompetent journalism, this time from The Times. The headline claims that walking to the shops damages the planet more than going by car. Of course this is not even remotely true, and a few seconds thought is enough to tear the argument apart. Continue reading
The software trap
Software companies have long ignored piracy most developing Asian countries, as a way of building market share. They are now starting to crack-down, and Adobe have apparently started on Sri Lanka. A friend of mine asked me what a business faced with a sudden increase in its costs (licences for some of this stuff are expensive), could do by way of switching to open source. This is my reply. Continue reading
Wogen not irrationally priced
Richard Beddard appears to be willing to agree with me that most active investors will under-perform. We still disagree about how investors’ chances of out-performing are. Richard has focused on a particular company , Wogen, as an example of irrational underpricing. Naturally, it is now essential that I poke a few holes in his bullish analysis. Continue reading
Lifecycle investing: when to switch?
The comments on a recent post questioned whether life cycle investing is a good idea. I think the idea is sound, but I think it is important to point out that thinking purely in terms of terminal wealth at retirement over-simplifies things. Continue reading
Choosing tracker funds
In a comment on my recent post on why investor’s should not try to out-perform, Robin Sole brought up the important issue of how to choose tracker funds, and the lack of a good totally passive approach to investment. Continue reading