recurrences......................

 

As Professor Arnold J. Toynbee indicates in his six-volume study of the laws of the rise and disintegration of civilizations, schism in the soul, schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal  projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements.  Only birth can conquer death—the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new.  Within the soul, within the body social, there must be—if we are to experience long survival—a continuous "recurrence of birth" (palingenesia) to nullify they unremitting recurrence of death.

-Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Good thing, since that is where he works.........

 I am endlessly fascinated by the human element of financial markets. It’s a constant cycle of fear, greed, envy, panic, and euphoria. The financial markets are like a laboratory for testing human emotions and behavior on a grand scale.

Things can go from boring to exciting in the blink of an eye because human nature never changes.

I love the stock market.

-Ben Carlson, from here

not-so-subtle downsides.............

 There are a million ways to get rich, most of which involve exploiting specific niches and one-off opportunities, to say nothing of luck. Universal rules about how to get rich are hard to come by.

But losing money, or losing happiness when you have money, or becoming a slave to your money – those stories tend to have common denominators. They are so common you can call them laws.

-Morgan Housel, from this post

in the heat of the moment...............

      More significant, perhaps, for his fate as a strategist was a trait he first exhibited here in the face of overwhelming odds: He knew when to quit and cut his losses.  This is a much-overlooked military capacity: in the heat of the moment to retain sufficient objectivity to recognize the prospect of sure defeat and then to summon the self-control to reverse course and withdraw.  For some—Grant, for instance—this proved impossible.  But Sherman's military career was studded with such moments, epiphanies of defeat, and they were emblematic of his eventual success.  He came to realize that in war there would be good days and bad days, but the ultimate objectives must always remain paramount.

-Robert L. O'Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangles Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

About your prefrontal cortex...........

 For most people, decline is just not an unwelcome surprise, it is also a huge mystery.  We learn early on that practice makes perfect; there is plenty of research telling us that mastery comes from ten thousand hours of work, or some really high number like that.  In other words, life has a formula: the more you do something, the better at it you become.

     But then you don't.  Progress isn't a straight line upward, . . . So what explains the downward portion? . . . 

     A better explanation involved structural changes in the brain—specifically, the changing performance of the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain behind your forehead).  This is the last part of the brain to develop in childhood and the first to exhibit decline in adulthood.  It is primarily responsible for working memory, executive function, and inhibitory mechanisms—that is, the ability to block out information extraneous to the task at hand, so we can focus and imp[orve our core skill.  A big, strong prefrontal cortex makes it possible for you to get better and better at your specialty, whether it is making a legal case, doing surgery, or driving a bus.

      In middle age, the prefrontal cortex degrades in effectiveness . . .

-Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

Cycles........................

      And in so far as the apparent prosperity is caused by an unusual plentifulness of loanable capital and a consequent rise in prices, that prosperity is not only liable to reaction, but certain to be exposed to reaction.  The same causes which generate this prosperity will, after they have been acting a little longer, generate an equivalent adversity.

-Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873)

Whither the market in 2023.......?

 The only Wall Street strategist-type forecast I’m willing to make is this: The stock market will have a correction in 2023.

I’m not exactly going out on a limb here for one simple reason — the stock market has a correction every year.

My work shows over the past 100 years or so just 5% of all trading days experience an all-time high for the U.S. stock market. Invert that data and that means 95% of the time as a stock market investor is spent in a state of drawdown from an all-time high.

The stock market cannot go up every single day. In fact, historically the stock market is only up on roughly 55% of all days that it’s open and down on the other 45% of days.

-Ben Carlson

Longing for the day..............

 ..........when good news isn't bad news:

via

Staying calm is a super power............

 Think about all the bad news, economic or otherwise, of the past twenty-two years that might have caused you to stop investing, or to pull your money out of the market.  Just as a reminder: the Dow was 10,540 at the end of January, 2000.  It is 32,134 today.   For a more readable copy of the chart, go here.

Major league zip lining.................

 

Four sensible rules for investing (and life)....

1, Stocks usually go up.

2. Sometimes stocks go down.

3. The world never actually comes to an end and if it ever does it won’t matter what your portfolio looks like.

4. You have to invest in something.

My strategy is to continue saving and investing and following my plan no matter what the market is doing.

None of us controls what happens in the market.

But we all have control over how much we save, how we allocate our assets, how often we check the market value of our portfolios and how we make intelligent investment decisions.

You focus on what you can control and let the chips fall where they may.

-Ben Carlson, from this post

Almost like it is a historical cycle or something...

 Good times plant the seeds of their destruction through complacency and leverage, and bad times plant the seeds of their turnaround through opportunity and panic-driven problem-solving.

-Morgan Housel, from here

Life its ownself.........................

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.


-George Santayana

a "beautiful mess"........................

Another big issue with what passes for modern-day wellness is that it creates the impression that everyone is happy all the time and that you should be, too. But like selective sharing on social media, this is not the reality of being human.

People get sad. Psychologists tell us that hiding and repressing that only makes it worse. Studies show that the more you hold something back or try to force it away, the stronger it becomes. On the contrary, the more vulnerable you are—both with yourself and others—the better. Researchers at the University of Mannheim, in Germany, call this the “beautiful mess effect.” Through multiple experiments, they’ve found that even though sharing your feelings may seem like a weakness to you, to others it seems courageous and builds trust and connection. In other words: stop trying so damn hard to be invincible, and just be yourself. Most people will be receptive and caring. And those who aren’t? Screw ’em. 

-Brad Stulberg, as excerpted from this essay, We've Reached Peak Wellness.  Most of It Is Nonsense

thanks Tony

Expectations...............

“There is nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so don’t expect yourself to do so either.” 

-Unknown, from this of five things to stop doing

History re-tweeting........................?

     But the biggest contributor to McKinley's standing in history was Theodore Roosevelt, whose leadership style could not have been further removed from that of McKinley.  Impetuous, voluble, amusing, grandiose, prone to making his territory with political defiance, Roosevelt stirred the imagination of the American people as McKinley never had.  To the Major's solidity, safety, and caution, the Rough Rider offered a mind that moved "by flashes or whims or sudden impulses," as William Allen White described it.  He took the American people on a political roller-coaster ride, and to many it was thrilling.
     But the New Yorker was never one to share the credit with others.  His theatrical self-importance led even his children to acknowledge that he wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

-Robert W. Merry,  President McKinley:  Architect of the American Century

Going up...............................

        We placed the order for our elevator with Otis (and paid a 50% + deposit) about four months ago.   The timing on this worked out pretty well.  About a week after the shaft was completed, Otis called to make arrangements for the deliver of the elevator.  It looked something like this:

Delivery day for the elevator

One of their requirements was a lot of space to work it

The elevator came with the note, "some assembly required"

First thing the technicians did was install this little winch motor.   It is not part
of the elevator, but by running a cable from the winch to the metal beam we
installed at the tippy-top of the shaft, the technicians created a handy device
for lifting the parts of the elevator into place

The control panel

More control panel

Control panel up top, and if I remember correctly, the
canister for the hydraulic fluid at the bottom

The guide rail, from the top

The guide rail, from the bottom

installing the hydraulic jack

Hydraulic fluid pump

Guide rail and hydraulic jack.  The way it works is the top
of the car is connected to the top of the hydraulic jack.  As
the jack goes up, or down, it carries the car along with it

The pit, about finished, waiting for the car to be built

Building the car.  Floor first

sidewalls next

Finally the car ceiling

Technicians working their magic

The Otis installers are almost done.  Next step is for the masons to finish
by closing up the shaft

Rough install complete.  Awaiting the fine tuning technician,
and the final floor touches.

More on the conversion of the Old School into 29 apartment units may be found here.

The shaft...............................

    Adding an elevator to the Old School was always part of the plan.   While school buildings tend to have wide corridors and staircases, three stories is a lot of stair climbing.  We deemed the expense of providing an elevator absolutely necessary for the success of the project.   The early, early architectural plans called for the elevator shaft to be constructed within the building proper.  For a number of reasons, I vetoed that idea.  We consulted the historical people and submitted new drawings showing the elevator shaft on the outside of the building.  Along with the drawings we submitted a sample of the exterior block.  It was a close a match in color as we could find.  Fortunately, the historical folks consented.  The addition of the elevator shaft will be the only structural change to the outside of the classic building.  Otis Elevator will be installing the elevator car once the shaft is completed.  Their specifications for the shaft were exacting.  This is one part of the project that has no margin for error.   It is no accident that the masonry crew had previous elevator shaft construction experience.

First comes the footer and foundation

Walls need to be cut to provide access from the elevator
shaft (and elevator) to each of the floors

New lintel over the newly cut ground floor opening

Walls have been saw cut.  Now waiting for the third
floor lintel to be installed

Third floor lintel being installed

Openings cut, lintels set.  Ready for the shaft

Block laying commences

Must be break time

This is what progress looks like

The right equipment helps

Almost done

The Otis elevator people gave firm instructions for the
installation of a steel beam at the tippy top of the shaft

Shaft isn't complete until its roof goes on

The finished product

I'm not a finance guy..............

...............................but I would venture a guess that "human nature" is the unidentified culprit:

There’s rarely a good reason for a stock market downturn. I’ve been studying many of the historical bear markets and corrections that don’t get as much publicity as the usual suspects (looking beyond the Great Depression, 1973-74, Black Monday crash, the dot-com bust, Great Financial Crisis, etc.). The theme I’ve found in many of the other instances where markets fell is that very few have a catalyst for the downfall, even after the fact.

-Ben Carlson, as culled from here

One amazing chart............................

Mark Perry posted this chart a week ago.  He also wrote, "As Larry Kudlow often reminds us, 'Free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity,' and it’s market forces that have lifted more people out of poverty than any government program or initiative from the United Nations, World Bank or International Monetary Fund."  All this is most likely both true and a good thing, but what are the odds that declining world poverty has a close relationship to the off-shoring of American manufacturing jobs during that same time period?   At the end of the day, "market forces" will always have their say, cheaper labor tends to replace more expensive labor.  A necessary ingredient for capitalism to survive (and succeed) is the notion of "creative destruction."  We could do a better job of accounting for that.