"The best mortgage is no mortgage" and
"credit-card balances are foolish." --
Thomas J. Stanley,
co-author,
The [Working-Class] Millionaire Next Door
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
--William Shakespeare (1564-1616, Hamlet)
Simple Savings Calculator: At 13% per annum, $1,000 invested
at the birth of a child balloons to over $2.8 million
by his retirement -- besting most of America's millionaires
(median net worth $1.6 million) -- and without anyone having
to lift a finger!
Try other scenarios...
Remember, that
time is money.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But
they,
while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Real Estate Mortgages: An Investment? See how much lenders pocket in
interest (almost all) and how little is applied to your outstanding
balance (crumbs!).
An
Amortization Schedule shows total interest and principal
paid -- (Would you let your stockbroker pocket over 90%
of the amount you give him to invest?)
There is no practice more dangerous than that of borrowing money.
--George Washington
The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it,
is composed of two distinct races,
the men who borrow,
and the men who lend.
--Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Dollar Cost Averaging: Simple, Systematic, and It Works!
(Perfect for salaried personnel)
If a man takes
no
thought
about what is distant,
he will find sorrow near at hand.
--Confucius (c. 551-479 B.C.)
Common Stocks: A Child's Gift That's Hard to Beat
(Especially when tax sheltered in a
Roth
IRA!)
Long range planning does not deal with future decisions,
but with the future of present decisions.
--Peter Drucker
What Parents Don't Know,
They Can't Teach Their Kids
Our plans miscarry
because they have no aim.
When a man does not know
what harbor he is making for,
no wind is the right wind.
--Seneca (4 B.C.-A.D. 65)
How the Broker Got His Porsche
I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh
whenever he sees another soothsayer.
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Let us be thankful for the
fools.
But for
them
the rest of us could not succeed.
--Mark Twain
'Tain't what a man don't know that hurts him;
it's what he knows that just ain't so!
--Frank McKinney Hubbard
Cutting Out Brokers and Fund Managers Through Direct Investments
Mutual Funds:
Wall Street's Latest
Cash
Cow
(Pity the unsophisticate)
When it is a question of money,
everybody is of the same religion.
--Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet, 1694-1778)
"Remember, that the most beautiful things in the world
are the most useless." --John Ruskin (1819-1900)
Advertising
is a valuable economic factor because it is the
cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are
worthless.
--Sinclair Lewis
"The feeling you should seek is prosperity.
Not a clean credit card..."(!)
With "friendly" financial advice like this, who needs enemies?
There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism.
By giving the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps
us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
--Oscar Wilde
Affluence-za
(Do You Have It?)
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less.
Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness;
it certainly destroys liberty,
and it makes some virtues impractical
and others extremely difficult.
--Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Wise men learn by other men's mistakes,
fools
by their own.
--H. G. Bohn
The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the
human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments of building,
dress, equipage and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain
boundary.
--
Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations)
Education:
Still The Most Profitable [and Safest] Investment
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
--Benjamin Franklin
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car;
but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
--Theodore Roosevelt
Lotto:
A Tax on the Stupid
Horse sense is the thing a horse has
which keeps it from betting on people.
--W. C. Fields
Never invest your money in
anything that
eats
or
needs
repairing.
--Billy Rose
ON THE ART OF STRATEGY:
Those who are victorious are skilled in both planning and adapting and need
not fear the result of a thousand battles; for they win in advance,
defeating those that have already lost.
--Sun Tzu (100 B.C.)
THE ESSENCE OF VISION:
It does not take sharp eyes to see the sun and the moon, nor does it take
sharp ears to hear the thunderclap. Wisdom is not obvious. You must see the
subtle and notice the hidden to be victorious.
--Sun Tzu (100 B.C.)
MARKET TIMING
What the experts say...
Short term market forecasts are poison and should be locked up in a safe place away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.
When we own businesses with outstanding management, our favorite holding period is forever.
A short quiz: If you plan to eat hamburgers throughout your life and are not
a cattle producer, should you wish for higher or lower prices for beef?
Likewise, if you are going to buy a car from time to time but are not an
auto manufacturer, should you prefer higher or lower car prices? These
questions, of course, answer themselves.
But now for the final exam: If you expect to be a net saver during the next five years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period? Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. In effect, they rejoice because prices have risen for the "hamburgers" they will soon be buying. This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices. (BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. 1997 Chairman's Letter)
If I could convince you of one thing it would be that the market ought to be irrelevant. Pick the right stocks and the market will take care of itself. The only buy signal I need is to find a company I like.
The way you make money in the stock market is to take advantage of the declines. Declines are good. They give you a chance to buy companies you really like at a lower price. If the stock's 20, you shouldn't care whether you paid 4 or 50 for it.
A lot of my stocks went from 12 to 6 before they went to 30... my best money has been in the third, fourth or fifth year I own something, not the third, fourth or fifth week.
Growth companies are an 8 to 10 year play.
It's
time
--- not timing --- that is going to make you
rich.
Having for generations pompously proclaimed the possibility of their rationally planning every detail of human life -- at the point of a gun and at the price of everyone else's planning and self-interest -- and somehow thereby achieving a utopia, they now begin to see the devastation they have caused, and, their dream in ruins. They sink to the level of superstitious primitives, living in fear of the intellect and of its products science and technology.
In a word, they have become "environmentalists." Safety to them now appears to lie in whatever is not man-made -- in whatever is "natural," viz., tested by blind evolution.
This web page is dedicated to all those who have discussed, debated, and
helped refine my beliefs. Especially to those great thinkers, past and
present, who refused to be cowed by the prevailing social prejudices of
their time. Many thanks too, to Ateneo de Manila University, Philippine
Science High School, the University of the Philippines, the National
Computer Institute, the
Ayn Rand Institute,
the
Skeptics Society,
Caltech, and the
Council for Secular Humanism.
© 1998 by an
Agnostic Pinoy
on the web
Most FAQ: Why the web page?
[
No False Gods: For individual liberty and
against tyranny! ]
[ Courage! (to think independently of one's peers) ]
