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Earlier this week, while the dew was still on the
ground, I slipped out for a quick nine holes at the down-market course I
belong to.
Given the hour, I had the place to myself except for a trio
from a nearby adult housing complex who tee off
every morning at 7:30 sharp, the moment the course officially opens. As I was
playing solo, it only took me two holes to catch up, after which my brisk
forward progress slowed to the viscosity of the maple syrup so popular in
this area.
It was thus, standing on the third tee communing with
nature and wondering if the old dear stuck in the right bunker would ever get
out, that yet another elderly gentleman landed on the second green and made
quick work of it, then somewhat sheepishly (it seemed to me) fiddled with his
scorecard, apparently not wishing to disturb my solitude. Never minding a bit
of company, and realizing that my forward progress was likely to remain
hindered – the trio ahead of me being notorious for not encouraging
others to pass through and thereby beat them off the course – I waved
the new fellow over and invited him to join.
Being hopelessly nosy, it was not very long thereafter
that I asked Phil, my new companion, what he did for a living and was
informed, after quickly consulting his watch, that exactly one month and one
day earlier, he had retired after 40-some years as a housing contractor. As a
consequence, he now spent his days playing golf, exercising, puttering around
the house and trying his hand at writing a book.
"So, how's the whole retirement thing working
out?" I asked, while waiting for one of the white-haired road blocks
ahead to register a score with his third putt.
At which point a cloud formed over his countenance.
"Well, we planned for this for years, but we don't
have a lot of money. I think we'll be okay. I think we have enough to cover
our cost of living," he replied, adding, "at least I hope we
do." The inflection in his voice spoke volumes about just how uncertain
he actually was about his prospects.
A few holes later, while killing time waiting for two
of the three active oldsters to hunt down their balls in the copse of pine
trees off to the left of the sixth hole, I mentioned conversationally how
pleased I was with the new Foot Joy Contour Casual™ shoes I
recently purchased to replace my old, worn-out shoes. The new shoes, which
look and feel like a sneaker, are not only very comfortable but completely
waterproof… which comes in handy when playing while the dew is still on
the ground.
"I have a friend who has a pair and loves
them," my companion commented, openly admiring the super-soft premium
leather uppers and DuraMax™ rubber outsole. "I bought my shoes at
the beginning of summer, and they have already lost their waterproofing. In
fact, my feet are soaked."
"Well, these are actually quite reasonably
priced," I said helpfully, "only about $99."
His look said more than words ever could: A palatable
desire to own a pair, but a desire to be left unfulfilled by the cold, hard
realization that he just didn't have the money. And probably never will.
While I suspect my golf partner wasn't aware of it, he
now belongs to the new era of stoicism.
My
Introduction to Stoicism
In my last column, on September
14, I mentioned a young genius who attended our Carlsbad Summit with her
father. As you may recall, she entered MIT at 14 years old and graduated at
17, winning a highly contested Thiel Fellowship along the way.
As some of you have asked, and it's readily available
in the public domain, her name is Laura Deming, and it's her personal mission
to find cures for aging and to commercialize any discoveries. (You can watch
a video profile of Laura and her work on the Thiel Fellowship site).
In any event, following up on a conversation I had had
with Laura at our Summit, I reached out to her father, and a warm and interesting
correspondence quickly developed.
In the course of our correspondence, John sent me the
unedited text of an interview he did with the New York Times titled
"Educating Laura" (FYI, she was homeschooled). In that interview
and in subsequent emails, John mentioned the positive impact his reading of
the stoic philosophers has had on how he views the world. Paraphrasing, his
exposure to stoicism has helped him to greatly reduce what he worries about
and, as a consequence, live a far more relaxed and contented existence.
Like many people, up until that point I harbored only a
loose impression of stoics as rather dour individuals who habitually eschew
life's many pleasures in favor of the equivalent of a bread and water diet.
Intrigued by John's references and recognizing a blank
spot in my knowledge, I turned my morning study period to the stoics and
quickly realized that much of what I thought about the stoics was wrong, and
the rest lacked any real appreciation for the intellectual underpinnings of
the stoic philosophy.
While a couple of weeks of one-hour-a-day studies in no
way qualifies me as anything more than an interested amateur on the topic, I
thought that you might find some of what I have learned of interest…
and maybe it'll even motivate you to learn more on your own.
For reasons I'll explain momentarily, I believe that
stoicism – voluntarily and out of necessity – will once again
find wide favor in the degrading Western democracies. That's because, as
you'll read, it offers a philosophically sound and entirely positive
operating methodology for those who now find themselves, like my accidental
golf partner, facing what is likely to be a permanent reduction in their
previous standard of living.
If you wish to fully comprehend the nuances of stoic philosophy,
there is much to learn. Given the time and space constraints of this
publication, I can only scratch the surface, but still want to provide you
with some sense of what I've discovered about the stoics so far.
For starters, my personal take on the "big
idea" of the stoics starts by acknowledging that we are humans. As
humans, we share certain undeniable traits with other animals. We feel
hunger. We like sex. We die. We are communal in nature. Yet, unlike other
animals, we have the capacity to apply logic and reason to the matters we
encounter in our everyday lives.
That ability to reason gives us the capability to make
choices based on what we personally believe is right or wrong. It is here
that things start to get interesting.
The stoic, you see, believes that the interpretation of
right or wrong, good or evil, is entirely an
internal affair.
Or, to quote one of the most famous of the stoics, the
ex-slave Epictetus, "God has entrusted me with myself."
By extension, then, the stoic doesn't rely on dictates
purportedly passed down from on high, or blindly accept as good the arbitrary
rules and regulations set out by the ruling elite.
Instead, the stoic uses logic and reason in attempting
to understand their own nature, how they fit into the universe, and what is
required to live a contented life.
In the first instance, understanding their own nature,
a stoic accepts things as they are, not as they might wish them to be. For
instance, that they will someday die (unless Laura first comes up with a
solution!). As another example of human nature, the stoics understood that we
humans are communal animals and that humans do best when they work together.
As a result, they believed in interacting in a positive manner with their
neighbors.
As to where they fit into the universe, as I interpret
it, this simply recognizes that there is a certain holistic aspect to the
world we live in, and going with the flow will lead to a more tranquil
existence.
In my opinion, it is on the latter point –
understanding what's required to live a contented life – where the
stoics really shine and offer hope for the new era we have entered. In this
regard, the stoics were early on in identifying and understanding that there
are aspects of life they have no control over.
Once they accept they have no control over a thing, a
practicing stoic puts it out of his mind.
On that general point, the stoic Roman Emperor Marcus
Aurelius wrote in his Meditations, "Only a fool worries about
death," for the simple reason that it's baked in the cake that we all
die; it's only a matter of when, and that's nothing we have any control over.
No control, no worries.
Instead – and this is where the misimpression so
many have of the joyless stoics comes in – the stoic lives in the
moment, taking pleasure ouf of their time with loved ones (as well as the
possessions they may own), but they do so with a set-in-cement understanding
and acceptance that those loved ones or possessions can vanish in a
heartbeat.
Again, Epictetus…
"There is only one way to happiness and that is to
cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."
Accepting that reality, a stoic doesn't dwell on what
the future might hold – because that's out of their control – but
lives in the moment.
Desire &
Fear
A key tenet of stoicism, as I read it, is that living a
happy, contented life requires keeping both your wants and your fears to a
minimum.
On this topic, Epictetus, who is particularly good at
putting his thoughts clearly, had much to say…
"Wealth consists
not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."
"The
essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall
depend as little as possible on external things."
"He is a
wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices
for those which he has."
The implications and benefits of "right
sizing" one's desires are obvious for someone living in a society that
constantly urges us to buy the latest and greatest in everything –
comfortable golf shoes included – even if it means going into debt to
do so.
That's not to say that wanting something is wrong, but
rather that living your life in a constant state of desire – say, for
the latest model of iPhone – sets you up for constant disappointment
should your desire not be met. In addition, almost by definition it means you
are pretty much permanently discontented with that which you already possess.
Similar to setting yourself up to steady disappointment
by constantly forming new desires, the vast majority of us humans waste time
and set themselves up for disappointment by fearing things that are also
beyond their control... for example, their own death or that of a loved one.
Or the loss of their wealth or health. A true stoic fears nothing, because he
or she has taken the time to identify and accept those things that they have
no control over. Again, no control, no worries… it's just a waste of
time.
A stoic would rather spend their time identifying the
things that give them pleasure and how to get the most out of those things
for as long as they have access to them. But, again, there is nuance in the
concept.
As an illustration, a stoic might agree that imbibing a
fresh, cold glass or two of Torrontés wine while sitting in a
café with friends is an enjoyable thing to do. That enjoyment comes
from a combination of flavor, ambience, companions and the soothing effect a
glass of wine has on the human mind. But far too many people come to believe
that if a little alcohol is good, then more will be better. Yet that
convivial scene just mentioned is, I think you would agree, an entirely
different thing than downing a bottle of whiskey night after night, an action
that will over time ruin your health and lead only to sadness.
"It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures,
but the foolish to be a slave to them."
The nuance in that quote, again from
Epictetus, is not that you should deny yourself all pleasures… but
rather enjoy them in moderation, for that's how to enjoy them most.
The benefits of delaying gratification may have a
scientific foundation as well. In the Marshmallow Experiment, researchers at Stanford placed
children alone in a room with a single snack. The kids were informed they
would be left alone for 15 minutes and if they could wait until the
researcher returned, they could have two snacks. On the other hand, if they
just couldn't wait, they could ring a bell and the researcher would return
immediately and the child could eat the single snack. (A number of the
children didn't bother ringing the bell; they just gobbled down the snack.)
While the test was originally set up to test one thing,
by happenstance some years later the lead researcher stumbled upon a strong
correlation between the kids who couldn't wait and a host of lifelong poor
choices leading to higher drug use, lower SAT scores, less successful
careers, higher divorce rates and so forth.
(Somewhat related, there is another body of research
that shows that kids who grow up in high-stress environments overdevelop the
part of the brain dealing with flight or fight, resulting in just the sort of
pathology that would cause them to fail the Marshmallow Experiment… but
I drift.)
I had a very close friend who built a fortune worth on
the order of $40 million, then died young of a drug overdose. His wealth
meant he could have anything he wanted, and he had no shortage of
"things"… yet, with no philosophical underpinnings to his
life, he died chasing his transient pleasures, and miserably so.
So, how do you find the day-in, day-out tranquility
that is the quest of the stoic?
For starters, spend some time thinking about what you
really need in life, versus just those things you want. I have had a lot of
fun doing this as part of my morning studies. As I look at the clutter around
me from past fulfilled desires – a motorized canoe, a pool table, a
Polaris Ranger, a fishing boat – all of which now sit largely unused, I
can only shake my head at the folly of my chasing after material things of
marginal utility.
Secondly, learn to understand and accept that the
nature of things means that a wide range of outcomes is possible in every
aspect of your life… including your every interaction with other
humans.
An opportunity to practice being stoic was provided by
my family's need to visit a passport office about an hour's drive away to
renew a passport last week. As I knew this would entail interacting with
human government agents, I mentally prepared myself for a wide range of
possible outcomes, all of which would sync with the nature of humans. On one
end of the range, the agents might be friendly and cooperative, or they could
be bland and mediocre. Or they might be aggressive and antagonistic, even
arbitrarily denying us that which we desired – prompt action in
renewing the passport ahead of our upcoming trip.
To a stoic, whether the agents are friendly or
antagonistic would be irrelevant. That's because you would accept that any of
the outcomes mentioned above is very much within the range of possibility.
Thus, the stoic would arrive at the passport office with zero expectations,
instead paying attention only to what is within their own control – for
instance, by making sure they had the required paperwork in hand. Furthermore,
the stoic would approach the member of officialdom in a spirit of
cooperation, because of the undeniable truth that humans do best when
cooperating.
If they were then met with an ignorant and agonistic
bureaucrat, they might politely try to show the person the error in their
logic, without judging the person themselves – because they are only
human, after all, and thus, by definition, ignorance and antagonism are well
within the norm – but they wouldn't get upset because they entered the
office knowing that that very outcome was always a possibility.
If, at the end of the interchange, the stoic is denied
what they seek, they would not worry about it, but rather go about their
business on an alternative path. In our case, the transaction went off smoothly,
which was just icing on the cake.
While that may seem overly sheepish, when you ponder
the matter from the perspective of living a happy life – a life that is
largely free from frustration and fear – it begins to make sense. In
the case above, if I had arrived at the passport office with a pre-determined
attitude that the agent was going to be an ignorant government functionary,
and that I was going to get my way regardless, I'd have been setting myself
up for frustration.
First off, my negative attitude would very likely have
been communicated in conscious or unconscious ways to the person I was there
to interact with, hurting the chances for cooperation. Secondly, if things
didn't go as planned, my frustration could have easily boiled over… causing
my blood pressure to soar and maybe causing me to end up face down with my
arms cuffed behind my back.
Now, don't get me wrong. I could be entirely in the
right about my expectations – that the bureaucrat should just speed
things along smoothly. But that's not what I'm trying to get at. What I am
trying to get at is that the stoics spent their lives studying what it takes
to live a joyful life, and came to the conclusion that it begins with
accepting the world as it is, and by adopting a mental framework that allows
us humans to all but eliminate frustration and worries, thereby living our
lives to the fullest.
Put to music, I suspect the stoics would nod in
agreement at the title of the classic Rolling Stones hit, You Can't
Always Get What You Want (but you can sometimes get what you need).
But I go on too long, so let me move along.
In his book, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient
Art of Stoic Joy, author William Irvine makes the valid point that most
people go through life without an operational philosophy: we humans just
don't think about this stuff very much anymore. And so the masses ultimately
confuse passing pleasures with life fulfilled and so spend far too much time
and money chasing them.
That lack of an operating philosophy
also leaves us, individually and as a society, open to easy manipulation... for example, by banks and
governments that urge us to go into debt. Or the media that try to work us up
into a frenzy of greed, fear or anger in order to get more eyeballs on their
advertising.
What I find refreshing about the stoic philosophy as a
foundation for life is that it offers a clear framework for dealing with
pretty much whatever life throws your way, starting by taking control of what
you can control and not worrying about the rest.
While I have only scratched the surface of the ideals
the philosophy contains, and in a moment will try to coherently tie these
musings into matters relevant to the economy, to help set the baseline
understanding of what a stoic is, here are some
additional quotes from Epictetus you might appreciate…
The key is to
keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your
best.
Be careful to
leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the
instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.
It's not what
happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
People are
not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.
First learn
the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
We have two
ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
All religions
must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.
Only the
educated are free.
First say to
yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
To accuse
others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse
neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
If you wish
to be a writer, write.
Do not seek
to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as
they are, and you will find them.
Difficulties
are things that show a person what they are.
If evil be
spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.
It is
impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.
If one
oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
Neither
should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single
hope.
If thy
brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever
that he is thy brother.
Freedom is
not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the
desire.
Make the best
use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
You are a
little soul carrying around a corpse.
No man is
free who is not master of himself.
He is a
drunkard who takes more than three glasses though he be
not drunk.
Know, first,
who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.
The world
turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.
We should not
moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.
The greater
the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their
reputation from storms and tempests.
Practice
yourself in little things, and then proceed to greater.
Whenever you
are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have
increased a habit.
Is freedom
anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
Whoever does
not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master
of the world.
Nothing great
is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me
that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first
blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
Never in any
case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child
dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of
your estate? Is not this also a return?
Silence is
safer than speech.
Control thy
passions lest they take vengeance on thee.
For those of you who are interested in learning more
about stoics, following is an excerpt from my email correspondence with John
Deming, in which he replies to my request for a good starting point in
studying the stoics.
As for
stoicism, there are two entry points. And by the way, it certainly doesn't
hurt to impart stoicism to kids but with one huge caveat that I mentioned in
the NY Times responses. Stoicism can easily turn into resignation to
one's fate. Wrong! The stoics do not teach that, but it can be one derivative
interpretation of their meaning. But that sort of resignation is what killed
progress all over Asia for 2,000 years. Buddha came to some of the same
conclusions as Chrysippus, the original Greek stoic, but ended up with the
concept of nirvana, one of the most counterproductive concepts ever
conceived. Mises, by the way, utterly destroys the concept of nirvana and
heaven in several places.
First entry
is through the modern field of psychology called cognitive therapy pioneered
by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis. One of the best and most accessible books is Feeling
Good by David Burns. Any book by David Burns or Aaron Beck is good.
But when I
discovered Epictetus at David Burns' recommendation, I hit gold. As usual,
since all the original stoic works are in Latin, the translation makes a huge
difference.
Best entry
into the original stoics is with one of the later ones, Marcus Aurelius. The
best, most accessible translation (for any age) of Marcus Aurelius's thought
is the recent edition published by David and Scot Hicks titled The Emperor's Handbook, A New Translation of The Meditations.
Unfortunately, it's not available on Kindle.
Another useful
entry point is William B. Irvine's A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy,
which is available on Kindle.
The thing I
like about Irvine's book is that he avoids the Buddhist interpretation but
gets the heart of the philosophy and its life-changing advice just right, in
my opinion.
David again. In addition to reading Epictetus and
Marcus Aurelius, I am well into Irvine's book and agree that it's a great
overview of the philosophy and the role it can play in living a more
fulfilled existence, one that is largely disconnected from the ideals
embodied in the now debunked American dream.
Which brings me, finally, to…
The New
Stoics
Simply stated, based on the work we have done here at
Casey Research, we believe that the long-running fiction that debt is money is
coming to an end, and with it the debt-fueled, artificially higher quality of
life enjoyed by young and old alike.
The chart below shows the decline in the
inflation-adjusted net worth of American families, broken down by income
percentiles. As you can see, the folks in the top income bracket –
shown in orange – continue to do well. And understandably so: just as a
one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind, so are the families who have a
tangible net worth kings in the land where everyone else only has debt.
But it is the decline in net worth for "everyone
else" that is so startling. It is the very picture of Doug Casey's
definition of a depression – a widespread decline in the standard of
living.
 
In this next chart, we look at the change in family net
worth by age group. Even a glance at the chart shows that while all
the age groups have taken a hit in this crisis, even those who have lived the
longest and therefore had the most time to accumulate wealth, the younger
demographics have been absolutely crushed.
That includes, it is well worth noting, the
pre-retirement age group of 55 through 64. At a time when they should be
building net worth to retire on, they are skidding hard in the wrong
direction.
In the next chart, we see the inflation-adjusted median
family net worth in the United States. Again, a couple of things leap out.
One being that the country's family units have taken a
big haircut in the crisis. Most starkly, fully half of the families in the
United States have less than $80,000 in total net worth.
Even in the top three percentiles (not shown here), you
find, in ascending order, an average net worth per family of just $128,000
and $286,000, respectively. Only in the very top percentile does the average
family net worth – at $1.194 million – approach something a
person can rely on to see them through a long retirement. (This recent New York Times article also sheds some
useful light on this topic.)
Given the real rate of inflation and the near-certainty
that it's only going to get worse from here due to the money printing, it
should be clear that the majority of Americans are in dire straits –
though many of them don't fully understand the serious consequences of that
coming inflation to them personally.
Put another way, the average person here in the US
– and in most of the large Western economies – is on a
well-greased slope to a new paradigm where their every desire can no longer
be satisfied simply by pulling out a piece of plastic or hopping down to the
local bank for a home equity loan.
That's not to say that the process of shifting from a
consumer society to a saver society is anywhere near complete. In fact,
thanks in no part to the banks being made whole by the Fed's various
machinations and lower interest rates, total consumer credit has rebounded to
new highs.
But, more tellingly, the household debt service ratio
has fallen sharply. There are a number of reasons for this, including people walking
away from debts during and after the big crash. In addition, the Fed's
cramming down of interest rates has brought the cost of credit –
especially on mortgages – way down. That said, I also believe a big
part of the fall-off in the debt service ratio is that people are waking up
to the hard reality that they can no longer sustain their previous "have
it all" lifestyles.
As a consequence of the simple realities encapsulated
in the charts above, and the overarching pressures of the excessive debts at
all levels that will remain a burden on the economy for as far as we can see,
I suspect that an increasing number of individuals – maybe entire
generations – will rediscover the commonsense ideas of the stoics.
Specifically, that it's better to live within your
means, and that owning every new gadget is not a birthright. The party is
over, but for the stoic, life couldn't be better.
Some Closing
Thoughts
So, what's it all mean, in terms of the economy, going
forward?
- Household deleveraging is likely to continue. That
will put downward pressure on prices for non-essentials. Of course, this
is all so much the better for the top percentile, who will be able to
leverage their net worth to take advantage of the fire sales caused by
deflation.
- Given the scope of financial bad news – to
wit, it affects the majority of households in the country, or will, and
cuts across almost all age groups – the clamor for the government
to do more, including using punitive taxes to wipe the smirk off the
faces of the fat-cat rich folks snapping up all the bargains as in the
paragraph above, will only grow louder.
- The politicians and the Fed, well aware of the
trends in motion and needing to address out-of-control and unpayable
government debts, will continue to pursue aggressively loose monetary
policies, and will continue to do so until they can no longer hide the
inflation by jiggering the numbers.
- Once serious inflation becomes obvious in all the
essentials, as it should now be to anyone with eyes or who visits a
supermarket or gas station, interest rates will start to rise, after
which things will start to break. For a preview of what's coming, take a
glance at the videos of the thousands of Greek protesters this week, a
number of whom have reached the point where they are angry enough to
throw explosive fire bombs into police lines.
Yet all the angry demands for the government to do more
will amount to naught, for the simple reason that the entire financial system
has been built on the thin ice of a fiat monetary system… and that ice
is in the process of cracking wide open.
As a novice stoic, I know that, given the lay of the
land in the degrading democracies, there is zero I can do about the current
setup. And so, per dear Epictetus, if it is a matter out of my control, then
there is nothing to be gained by worrying about it.
There are, however, things that are in my
control… just as they are in yours. For example…
- Begin to discriminate between what you want and
what you need. I don't
know about you, but my closets are already cluttered with things I thought
I really needed but, with even a little passage of time, realize I
don't. The more things you own, the more things own you.
- Manage your expectations. You can't always get what you want – get
over it.
- People are people wherever you go. Don't be too judgmental or
disappointed when they act in a way that is consistent with their
nature. And don't be surprised if they act out when they find their
aspirations foiled… for instance, when they realize that the world
they thought they were living in, where they could have everything their
hearts desired, is no more.
- Be calm and measured in all things. You only live once and will
someday die and be quickly forgotten. Take it
easy, and don't sweat the small stuff.
- Be polite and cooperative. We humans do best when we work
together.
- Don't get overly attached to anything. Everything we own and everyone
we know can be taken from us tomorrow. That's just the way it is, and
there's nothing you can do about it, so appreciate your comforts and
your loved ones while you have them.
- Moderation in all things, including your excesses. Too much of a good thing is,
well, too much of a good thing. Buying every new toy won't make you
happy and neither will being immoderate in your pleasures… whether
it be adult beverages, sex, even physical exercise – I have a
relative who is a total adrenaline junkie and one tick off needing
institutionalization as a result of over-exercise.
- Do what you can to shore up your own finances, then enjoy your life. Based on my direct experience, 99% of the people
in this country have no idea what's happening in our highly politicized
economy. That gives you a real advantage when it comes to creating
portfolio strategies to see you through to the other side of the worst
that is coming. And don't forget to diversify internationally and,
thereby, politically.
But once you have a strategy, then don't dwell on this
stuff… you'll have taken care of everything you control, and worrying
about the rest is a waste of time.
I'd like to close this section by thanking John Deming
for bringing the stoics to my attention. As you may be able to tell, it's
been highly energizing and plain good fun spending time getting to know the
stoics and putting myself through all manner of
mental exercises to help me better comprehend their ideas and how those ideas
might be useful in my own life. Hopefully you'll find some of this adds value
to your life, as well.
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