Most of us believe that all our financial problems would disappear if we could simply make more money. Is this true? Keynes’ Prediction In 1930 John Maynard Keynes, perhaps the most famous and celebrated economist ever, wrote an essay entitled “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. In this essay Keynes made a prediction of what life…
Years ago the teacher in a college math class I was taking told a story I enjoyed. He claimed the story was absolutely true. While on vacation with his family the pilot on one of the flights decided to have some fun with the passengers by having a contest. He announced the plane’s direction of…
In fact, most of the time you should eat the marshmallow. I am referring, of course, to the famous marshmallow test conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in which he gave young children marshmallows and told them if they waited 15 minutes to eat them he would give them another one. Follow-up studies showed that the…
Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners. – E. Joseph Crossman I have long thought that cars were a great destroyer of middle-class wealth. Recently I stumbled across some evidence confirming this. The evidence came in the form of a graph created by the Wall Street Journal…
Surveys show that the most common New Year’s resolutions are physical and financial. I have certainly made my share of both of these types of resolutions over the years but I have had a lot more success in keeping my financial resolutions than my physical ones. Why is that? Is it just my personality or…
Men do not desire to be rich, only to be richer than other men. – John Stuart Mills (1806-1873) There is a great old Jewish folktale in Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The story is about two competing shopkeepers in a small town. Their shops were right across the street…
Have you ever used a common term or phrase without thinking about what the words mean? Do the words we use to describe things matter? Can the words we use to describe things affect our attitudes about them, and even our actions? I have been thinking a lot about these questions since coming across the…
Another of my posts has been selected to run on Rockstarfinance.com, a website that promotes itself as “A Collection of Awesome Money Articles.” It is my post originally published on January 28, 2014 titled “The Power of Thrift: A Penny Saved Is…” If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, take a look. …
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” The witty poet Ogden Nash quipped “A penny saved is – impossible.” The financial writer Andrew Tobias, in his great book The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, points out that Franklin’s quote needs updating. The updated version, according to Tobias, should read, “A penny saved is…
My post “Do You Want Financial Security or the Appearance of Wealth,” originally published on December 30, 2013, was selected to appear on rockstarfinance.com, a site that describes itself as “A Collection of Awesome Money Articles.” In this post I introduce the old cowboy saying “Big hat, no cattle” and talk about how it relates to personal finance. If you…
