A long time ago I wrote this article. It got no love, but I still believe in what I said. So today, I’m going to say it again:

Blogging (while living overseas in a low-cost country) is a win-win! You earn U.S. or at least developed world rates of pay while paying a much lower cost of living.

I think I went a bit overboard with the analysis in my previous article. It’s really not a complicated concept. Writing on the Internet allows a writer to distribute his thoughts to anyone, anywhere in the world.

And if you live in…

I loved this article by Kareem Kudus. I was listening to a podcast yesterday and heard about the same cobra story that he shares as one of his examples of a seemingly intelligent plan backfiring.

I highly recommend reading the article but the cobra story goes like this:

• Too many cobras in colonial India.
• English government puts a 1 British Pound bounty on each cobra.
• People start hunting cobras and cobra population reduces. Cool!
• Farmers start raising cobras and turning them in for bounties in order to game the system.
• English government realizes that they’ve been had and cancel the…

(Not intended to be investment advice. Opinions are my own.)

You might argue that I’m being picky about semantics, but currency debasement and inflation are not the same thing. As an investor or just as a person who is impacted by economic forces, it’s important to recognize this.

There’s been a lot of recent discussion from more extreme types that hyperinflation is inevitable. There are even subreddits dedicated to this idea:

The premise of Wall Street Silver is that, because of sky-high debt, fiat currencies like the U.S. …

Most of my time on Medium has been spent writing about the economic problems that we currently face. Recently, I realized that the root cause of all of them is the same — a misalignment of incentives between certain companies/industries and everyday people — that is the topic of this article.

Berkshire Hathaway hasn’t performed better than the market in a long time. Warren Buffet and his sidekick Charlie Munger seem to have lost their edge when it comes to investing, however, they still have many interesting insights on what’s happening in the world. …

Do You Know How Big a Financial Catastrophe You Could Survive?

I came to this country owing more than I owned.

In personal finance terms, I had a negative net worth. Negative $4000 to be precise.

But in reality, my finances were even more fragile than that sad number. That’s because part of my nominal net worth was tied up in a used car for which I’d paid $8000.

If an emergency came up and I needed money, I’d be hard-pressed to sell my car immediately, and even if I managed it, I’d probably have had to lower its price significantly.

How do you capture that fragility, or in a better…

When I logged in to check my Medium earnings for the day, I was surprised to find another $500 bonus:

(Not intended to be investment advice. No position — writing this helps me think.)

It sounds crazy. I’ve been railing against bonds for the better part of a year. So why would I suddenly consider investing in levered bonds? This is the next part in my series on Treasury bonds, first part here:

When I say levered bonds, I mean going short cash to go long Treasury bonds. To help understand why this bet makes sense let’s first break down the drivers of return and risk for cash and Treasury bonds:

ReturnCash: Short Term Interest Rate - Inflation Rate…

This week’s recommendations are centered around crypto and rising interest rates. I do worry a bit about crowded trades and the fact that literally everyone is expecting high inflation. But I’ve (with a great amount of hesitation) come around to the view that there’s few alternatives to stocks and precious metals, despite their elevated prices these days.

During these times, in my opinion, the best an investor can do is stay nimble and use security selection and reasonably priced hedges (via options) to provide a layer of protection.

Here are a few articles that offer various views on how to…