One of the best books on financial planning is The Richest Man in Babylon, written by George Clasen and first published in 1926. The book consists of a few stories set in ancient Babylon.

Every household has a balance sheet, whether they know it or not. The balance sheet shows the value of assets, the book value of debts, and the difference which is net worth.

You may recall the movie Forrest Gump in which the title character, played by Tom Hanks, was a simple person who happened to have a ringside seat on many of the major events in American history in the 1950s through the 1970s.

Ezekial Emanuel is an oncologist and professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He has recently been appointed to Joe Biden’s COVID Task Force.

James Parry knew at a young age that he wanted to grow up to be a money manager.  It was during his undergraduate years at the University of Washington in Seattle, that the economics major first subscribed to the Financial Analysts Journal (FAJ), the flagship publication of the professional society for Chartered Financial Analysts (CFAs). 

My recent essays have focused on the 10% upper tail of the wealth or income distribution.    People generally acknowledge that the top ten percent are doing great.  Perhaps this is true by definition.  If they were doing poorly, they would not be in the top 10%!  What about the other 90%?  Let’s start with the overall picture.  Academic psychologist Steven Pinker’s latest book1 documents the enormous material progress that has been achieved and enjoyed not just by the elite, but rather by the majority of mankind, over the past 200 years.  While these trends have been noted by many authors, it is useful to run through them again quickly.  Longevity has increased dramatically.  Infant mortality has plummeted.

John Bogle died earlier this year at the age of 89. According to legendary investor Warren Buffett, Bogle created more wealth for investors than anyone else in history.

A typical piece of financial advice is to reduce your equity allocation as you age. When you are young, there is plenty of time to recover from a market debacle. Not so much if the debacle occurs after you are already retired.