The name Irving Fisher is not widely known, but maybe it should be. In his day, Fisher was a renowned economist. He graduated first in his class from Yale, received the first PhD in Economics ever issued by Yale and then went on to join the school's faculty. Despite all that, however, [...]
America’s first personal finance expert
WITH THE FOURTH OF JULY JUST AROUND THE CORNER, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the wisdom of America's first personal finance author — and an author of the Declaration of Independence — Ben Franklin. Franklin lived in the 1700s, but it turns out that virtually everything he had to say [...]
Eight ways to ignore the stock market
“Stock Market Hits New High” Have you noticed headlines like this lately? Since March of 2009, when the S&P 500 Index hit a low of 666, the market has more than tripled. And it keeps going higher. In fact, headlines like this have become so frequent that they are no longer remarkable. The [...]
Pit bulls, personal assistants and Ponzi schemes
Each year around this time I think back to the day of my college graduation. As a final send-off, after the ceremonies, the school held a luncheon for the graduating class. At this luncheon I happened to be seated next to a well known alumnus of the school. This fellow had graduated in the 1950s and [...]
An investment poem – yes, a poem
Albert Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” The investment industry, however, seems to subscribe to a different motto: “Make things as complicated as possible, and then complicate them a little bit more.” Wall Street salespeople talk about alpha (a [...]