Good reads from around the Web.
I was pleased to see another financial blogger making the case that there’s more to life than dying and leaving it all to your children.
Says Jim at SexHealthMoneyDeath [1]:
Let’s talk about Death for a minute.
Most of we middle classes have absolutely no intention of dying before we’ve clocked up at least four score years and ten (technically 87 years, by the way).
Which means our own kids will be well into their fifties before they sniff any cash from us.
Another middle class dream for many of us today is to retire financially independent in our fifties, or even sooner – why would we want any different for our children? We should be educating them to do exactly the same as ourselves and we should lead by example.
If they succeed in this – and let’s hope they do – they won’t need to rely on any cash from us when we die. Especially if they’ve already received quite a lot of it over the years before we snuff it.
So fair enough, Jim’s not coming at it from the revolutionary Citizen Smith [2] style angle that makes me believe inheritance tax is one of the fairest taxes in a world of increasing income inequality [3].
To wit: We have a State and the money for it has to come from somewhere. I believe it’s better to tax unearned windfalls from the dead more heavily and the earnings of the living and productive less heavily.
(I know you – statistically – probably don’t agree with me. That’s fine. We can still do blog together.)
Even if he’s not quite a fellow traveler, at least Jim fingers the subtle misdirection of the argument that dead parents want to do better for “their kids”, when those “kids” are more likely to be financially secure 50-somethings than impoverished tykes desperate for an extra bowl of gruel.
Anyway, whatever you believe, enjoy these links and the weekend!
(It’s later than you think…)
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Six rules to disciplined investing – Rick Ferri [4]
- Apathy as a strategy – A Wealth of Common Sense [5]
- Anytime is the right time for international diversification – Vanguard [6]
Active investing
- Good investing means looking stupid sometimes – The Reformed Broker [7]
- Reasons to beware the Glencore recovery – Value Perspective [8]
- Selling Cranswick after a 135% gain in three years – UK Value Investor [9]
- Reflections on 100 seed investments – Haywire [10]
- 5 things Tim Ferris did to become a better investor [Podcast] – 4HWW [11]
Other articles
- Jason’s monthly dividend income hits four-figures – Dividend Mantra [12]
- Sequence of returns risk matters – Paul R. Reid [13]
- Investing discipline by any means – Abnormal Returns [14]
- You can be too careful – The Escape Artist [15]
- The power of namedropping – Pricenomics [16]
Product of the week: Green Star Energy [17] has launched an ‘all you can burn’ energy tariff, reports The Guardian [18]. It doesn’t sound very green, but research apparently found consumption doesn’t change much when people switch to such a deal. And it could lessen worries about bills, which might be handy for the chilly elderly.
Mainstream media money
Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site.1 [19]
Passive investing
- In praise of the (dead) investors – Morningstar [20]
- Swedroe: Refuting Goldman Sachs’ active investing pitch – ETF.com [21]
Active investing
- How to beat an efficient market – Morningstar [22]
- Mining and emerging market trusts turn the corner – CityWire [23]
- The S&P isn’t as pricey as at previous peaks – BusinessInsider [24]
- Martin Wolf: Beware of the liquidity delusion [Search result] – FT [25]
- Investing in frontier markets – ThisIsMoney [26]
- Petrodollars were another form of QE – Bloomberg [27]
A word from a broker
- Quick look at Lloyds ahead of shares giveaway – Hargreaves Lansdown [28]
Other stuff worth reading
- First time buyers and 40-year mortgages – The Guardian [29]
- Merryn: Our stupidly complicated pensions regime [Search result] – FT [30]
- Your top 10 pension questions answered – ThisIsMoney [31]
- 9 statements that will change how you think – Motley Fool (US) [32]
- Test your personal finances before trauma strikes – New York Times [33]
- 10 lessons about personal finance from a banker – Business Insider [34]
- The strength of LinkedIn’s weak ties – BloombergView [35]
- Happier Mondays – Time [36]
Book of the week: I just learned Jason Zweig has a new book out, Devil’s Financial Dictionary [37]
Like these links? Subscribe [38] to get them every week.
- Note some articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”. [↩ [42]]