"Devil Take the Hindmost"

"This time is different!"

Edward Chancellor's "Devil Take the Hindmost" is an in-depth study of financial speculation and panics over the last 500 years. The book's 400-plus pages really drive home two messages:

1. In the long run, greed is not good.
2. This time may be different, but probably not in the ways we hope.

My retirement talk

I gave a talk at work last week on what academic research has to say about the best ways to save for retirement. Because we live in amazing times, I was able to record the presentation and save it on YouTube. Feel free to share it with anyone who might benefit:

The video description is below.

"The Millionaire Next Door"

Closer than you might think.

There are more millionaires in America today that at any time in the past, and it's not just because of inflation. "The Millionaire Next Door" exhaustively examines who these people are, how they live, and why most of us have completely wrongheaded ideas about the millionaire lifestyle.

Here's how it begins:

Twenty years ago we began studying how people become wealthy. Initially, we did it just as you might imagine, by surveying people in so-called upscale neighborhoods across the country. In time, we discovered something odd. Many people who live in expensive homes and drive luxury cars do not actually have much wealth. Then, we discovered something even odder: Many people who have a great deal of wealth do not even live in upscale neighborhoods.