Your P2K Articles (2022-06-24)
Kindle Highlights
In Turing: Pioneer of the Information Age (public library), philosopher and Turing Archive for the History of Computing
“What we need is the dull, factually correct and accurate middle. Because only from that middle will come the solutions.” I disagree with one word in that quote. How the World Really Works is certainly factually correct and accurate, but it is never dull. It is a compelling and highly readable book that leaves readers with the fundamental grounding needed to help solve the world’s toughest challenges.
The most important investing question is not, “What are the highest returns I can earn?” It’s, “What are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time?” Compounding is just returns to the power of time. Time is the exponent that does the heavy lifting, and the common denominator of almost all big fortunes isn’t returns; it’s endurance and longevity. “Excellent returns for a few years” is not nearly as powerful as “pretty good returns for a long time.” And few things can beat, “average returns sustained for a very long time.” That’s the biggest but most obvious secret in investing: Average returns for an above-average period of time leads to magic.
For most of the time that life has existed on Earth, there were no humans. And when there were human-like creatures, they spent much of their time doing not much. Nomads eat when they need to, move around and hang out. It’s not an easy life, but there are none of the modern distractions or problems that urban culture presents. Grain began to change things, because agriculture produces far more calories per acre, allowing populations to grow… and to store the results of our labor. Stored grain, though, is easier to steal and to tax than something that must be eaten fresh off the tree or harvested. And so you get markets and wars and governments and the rise of a group of people wealthier than any individual farmer or nomad could be.