The Psychology of Money
Dear Colleagues:
I’d like to share with you a book which considers a topic that affects all of us. Whether you are a capitalist or a socialist, you each have your own idea of what money brings. In the short book by Morgan Housel, “The Psychology of Money," context is given to us all. After all, we all have things we need, or we want, and we all have families to provide for. In his works…
“Your personal experience with money makes up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.”
- Morgan Housel
Here are a few additional excerpts and points, but the book will give you a perspective I doubt you have:
“A genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.”
- Napoleon
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
- Sherlock Holmes
“History never repeats itself; man always does.”
- Voltaire
“Our findings suggest that individual investors’ willingness to bear risk depends on personal history. Not intelligence, or education, or sophistication. Just dumb luck of when and where you were born.”
- Morgan Housel
Perspective on investing:
Individuals born in 1950’s the market was flat and so your view was likely that investment in the stock market was not a good way to make money. If you were born in the 1960’s and experienced inflation through the 70’s stock prices went up 3x (remember gas lines and reduced value of your paycheck). If you were born in 1990 inflation was so low, you never noticed it. Before WWII most Americans worked until they died.
Who Buys Lottery Tickets?
The lowest income households spend an average of $412 a year on lotto tickets; this is 4x what higher income individuals spend. The reason is the perception that is the only way a low-income individual can get ahead. In fact, Americans spend more on lotto tickets than on movies, video games, music, sporting events.
On Luck vs Risk:
“Luck and Risk are siblings. They are both the reality that every outcome in life is guided by forces other than individual effort.”
“The world is too complex to allow 100% of your actions to dictate 100% of your outcomes. They are driven by the same thing: You are one person in a game with seven billion other people and infinite moving parts.”
“Everything worth pursuing has less than 100% odds of succeeding, and risk is just what happens when you end up on the unfortunate side of that equation.”
“Focus less on specific individuals and case studies and more on broad patterns. Studying a specific person can be dangerous because we tend to study extreme examples- the billionaire, the CEOs, or the massive failures that dominate the news.”
“TIME IS YOUR MOST IMPORANT ROI (Return on Investment): “…people who have control over their time tend to be happier in life is broad and common enough observation that you can do something with it.”
“Success is a lousy teacher. It reduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
- Bill Gates
“The trick when dealing with failure is arranging your financial life in a way that a bad investment here and a missed financial goal there won’t wipe you out, so you can keep playing until the odds fall in your favor.”
“LUCK AND RISK: Nothing is a good or as bad as it seems.”
- NYU Professor Scott Galloway
Why it may never be enough…
“Modern capitalism is a pro at two things: generating wealth and generating envy.”
“Life isn’t fun without a sense of enough. Happiness, as it’s said, is just Results- Expectations.”
“Happiness is invaluable.”
“Planning is important, but the most important part of every plan is to plan on the plan not going according to plan.”… “You plan, God laughs.”
- Morgan Housel
Perspective: What really happened to the US Economy over 170 years?
1.3 million Americans died while fighting in nine major wars
99.9% of all companies that were created went out of business
Four US Presidents were assassinated
675,000 American died in a single year from a flu pandemic
30 separate natural disasters killed at least 400 Americans
33 recessions lasted a cumulative 48 years.
The number of forecasters who predicted any of those recessions rounds to zero
The stock market fell more than 10% from a recent high at least 102 times
Stocks lost a third of their value at least 12 times
Annual inflation exceeded 7% in 20 separate years.
The words “economic pessimism” appeared in newspapers at least 29,000 times, according to Google
“Our standard of living increased 20-fold in these 170 years, but barely a day went by that lacked tangible reasons for pessimism.”
FREEDOM: “Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays”
“The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, “I can do whatever I want today.”
“The common denominator in happiness is that people want to control their lives.”
“Money’s greatest intrinsic value- and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time.”
On Perspective over our lifetime:
As we age our values change:
Quality relationships
Being part of something bigger than themselves
Spending quality unstructured time with their children
“Money has many ironies. Here is one…Wealth is what you don’t see.”
“Building wealth has little to do with your income or investment returns, and lots to do with your savings rate.”
“Money relies more on psychology than finance.”
“We live in a hyperconnected world: “…digitization erases global boundaries- as software ‘eats the world.”
- Marc Andreesen, venture capitalist
FINAL WORDS:
SURPRISE! “History is the study of change, ironically used as a map for the future.”
“Things that have never happened before happen all the time.”
“History is mostly the study of surprising events.”
“The cornerstone of economics is that things change over time, because the invisible hand hates anything staying too good or to bad indefinitely.”
“The mental trick we play on ourselves is an over-admiration of people who have been there, done that, when it comes to money.”
“Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it.
- Jeff Immelt, former CEO of GE”
“I am not an Optimist. I am a very serious possibilist.”
- Hans Rosling, statistician
If you find this post of interest, you’ll have to read the book for the really interesting parts.
Kind Regards,
Jon “JP” Warner MD
Founder, CSS
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