- Monevator - https://monevator.com -

Weekend reading: A world of lunacy

Good reads from around the Web.

One of the many reasons I love the Mr Money Mustache blog is the MacGyver-like way the Mustachioed one has welded an ecological message onto his financial freedom message.

(Well, that and and the swearing. We’re too tame to do it around here!)

Not surprisingly, I loved his latest post [1] where he observes the weird spending habits of an alien race as seen from outer space, and then sees just the same thing back home on Earth:

In one incident, I traveled to a distant suburb with my son to attend a child’s birthday party […]

At the party, every food was an unrecognizable assembly of chemical compounds ripped out of a brightly-colored box, served on styrofoam plates which were promptly discarded into a black plastic bag.

Every gift was a plastic and metal recreation of a famous movie character or vehicle, ripped out of another plastic package. There was a television in the kitchen blaring news and advertisements.

The unhealthy parents drank beer and ate cake, and sighed about not having enough time or money to spend more time taking care of their home, or their kids, or themselves.

All of this took place in a neighborhood with beautiful walking paths and parks, and a modern utopia of a school just down the road. But every weekday at 2:45 PM, an ominous horror begins. An immense and powerful passenger vehicle will ease down the road and come to a halt at the prime spot of the school’s pickup loop.

And the engine will be left running.

As ever, Mr Money Mustache has a plan to deal with it – and to his credit he isn’t advocating the use of tactical nuclear warheads – so go read it [1].

Live long and prosper!

From the blogs

Making good use of the things that we find…

Passive investing

Active investing

Other articles

Product of the week: Some new hydro-electicity backed bonds are offering 7% a year says The Guardian [20], but I’d note investors in similar solar mini bonds might have lost the lot [21] recently. This new offer from LoCO2 [22] is in conjunction with well-respected Triodos Bank, which is somewhat reassuring.

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 [23]

Passive investing

Active investing

Other stuff worth reading

Book of the week: The Investor’s Podcast interviewed [41] Tobias Carlisle this week in a very ebullient fashion. Carlisle wrote the innovative book Deep Value [42], which is a rather calmer fare.

Like these links? Subscribe [43] to get them every week!

  1. Note some FT 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”. [ [47]]