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A few quick beliefs that guide my investing acumen –

Only invest in stocks or bonds. Home ownership ^[1], gold, Bitcoin, etc. are all scams long-term.
Insider trading is rampant. Never buy individual stocks. Only index funds like VOO.
The best companies remain private. Public companies focus on nothing but the next quarter to appease shareholders. So any individual stock you can buy is likely a long-term loser.
Remember the Cantillon Effect – those closest to the money supply eat first and eat best.
Check if interest rates are at long-term highs or lows. If low, dollar-cost average into VOO ^[2]. When high (like present), cash out and buy treasury bills for a 4-5% annual return.
As a rule, never enter a position unless you're comfortable holding it for at least a year. (Trading is foolish and short-term capital gains tax will gut your earnings even if you get lucky.)
Congress is pushing through a bipartisan stock trading ban for sitting members. This is a strong hint that we've hit a market top. (Similarly, China banned Bitcoin in September 2021.)
Warren Buffett has sold his Apple stock while tech jobs have collapsed. This isn't good.
The Israel-Iran conflict may also be spiraling out of control. In the likely event it escalates, oil prices and interest rates will skyrocket while the markets crash.
Keep in mind that stock market returns from 1971 to 2018 were predicated on globalization and good relations with China. Post-Trump, this may no longer be possible.

"We should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years. Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation." – Mark Zuckerberg

"De-globalisation is real and gaining traction, despite the resilience of global trade over the past three years. With bilateral trade patterns starting to shift, and both the US and China using strategic industrial policy with a fair amount of success, there is no way back to the neoliberalism of the last 40 years." – Dario Perkins

"There is timing in the Way of the merchant, in the rise and fall of capital. All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this." – Miyamoto Musashi

"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." – Stein's Law

"The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." – Warren Buffett

[1] Most people can only afford to buy one house – the one they live in. If you purchase a house for $500,000 and the price increases to a million, you've made money on paper, but all the other houses in your neighborhood have increased in price by the same amount, so you'll have to purchase a new house at the same inflated price (you need to live somewhere). Meaning you're breaking even at best. After interest payments and maintenance costs and realtor fees and property taxes, you've lost money.

[2] Be very careful when transitioning back into stocks from bonds. The worst of the 2008 crash happened after the pivot to lower rates. The Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates in 2007, and by January 30, 2008, it had reduced short-term interest rates to 3%, down from 5.25% in September 2007. Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.

Political Views

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Music

Consumer Goods

Alera High Performance Task Chair (My spine’s best friend.)
AmazonBasics 8” Chef’s Knife (Kitchen workhorse at an unbeatable price.)
Asus VS228H-P 21.5” 1080p Monitor (Ideal bezel, size, and display ports for extended use.)
Bowflex SelectTech Adjustable Dumbbells (Home gym is the best gym.)
CAP Barbell Flat Weight Bench (Can’t bench press without a bench.)
De’Longhi Portable Air Conditioner (Makes working in the summer bearable.)
Hero Bread (No-carb bread which actually tastes good.)
iBUYPOWER Pre-Built Gaming PC (For work and play.)
Motorola G 2022 (Smartphone with two days of battery life.)
Nike Men’s Air Max 2090 Shoes (A 1.5” height boost can come in handy.)
Redify Jump Rope (Who needs a treadmill?)
StriveZen 2-Month View Wall Calendar (Record shopping lists, important dates, etc.)
Vive Wrist Brace (Type for ten hours a day.)
ZNHIS Magnetic Bookmarks (Avoids the mess of disposable paper bookmarks.)

Hobbyist Books

How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman (Includes the steps most authors skip.)
The Men’s Health Big Book of Exercises by Adam Campbell (Endless workout variations.)
Set Your Voice Free by Roger Love (Good speakers are made, not born.)

(For computer programming books, check out this list. Supplement with ChatGPT and Scoop.)

Philosophy Books

Certain to Win by Chet Richards (How to outmaneuver and defeat much larger enemies.)
The Complete Works by Arthur Schopenhauer (Patron saint of intellectuals.)
Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt (Thriving in the white-collar workplace.)
Feline Philosophy by John Gray (There is no higher goal than becoming a cat.)
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse (How a pawn can become a player.)
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene (Either exercise power or have it exercised on you.)
Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman (Our perceptions merely approximate reality.)
Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich (Living in fear of death is worse than dying.)
Straw Dogs by John Gray (Giving up hope of “ultimate meaning” is the secret to happiness.)
The Trouble with Being Born by Emil Cioran (Resignation is only the beginning.)
We Have No Idea by Jorge Cham (Probing the edges of scientific knowledge.)
Zero to One by Peter Thiel (Push the boundaries of what’s possible, or don’t even start.)

Economics Books

The Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell (Understanding the “national debt”.)
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (Work is more about societal control than actual work.)
The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan (We waste a third of our lives social signaling.)
The Death of the West by Pat Buchanan (Demographics are destiny.)
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber (Loan interest makes the world go around.)
The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao (Organizational politics demystified.)
How Civilizations Die by David Goldman (Birth rate collapse and its implications.)
Open Borders by Bryan Caplan (Immigration restrictions make no economic sense.)
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis (Most of the world lives in terrible poverty.)
River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins (Suffering and scarcity are built into the system.)
Screen Schooled by Joe Clement (Social media has mentally crippled most people.)
The Singularity Is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil (I, for one, welcome our new AI successors.)
Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis (Big Tech has successfully enslaved us.)
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells (Global climate change will ruin everything.)
Untrue: Women, Lust, and Infidelity by Wednesday Martin (Primate dating market dynamics.)

History Books

Early Indians by Tony Joseph (Genomics-based insights into 65,000 years of India’s history.)
Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis (50 million forgotten murders.)
Modern India: 1885-1947 by Sumit Sarkar (Nationalism, religion, and caste in the British Raj.)
Montaillou by Emmanuel Ladurie (Based on actual interviews with medieval peasants.)
A Republic, Not an Empire by Pat Buchanan (U.S. history from a pre-1960’s point of view.)
The Shadow of the Great Game by Narendra Sarila (Pakistan’s Cold War origins.)
Stalin by Domenico Losurdo (Perhaps the 20th century’s most influential person.)
The Unnecessary War by Pat Buchanan (Unredacted analysis of the world wars.)

Historical Documents

“The ABC of Communism” by Nikolai Bukharin (Primer on what tens of millions died for.)
“Address Announcing Special Military Operation” by Vladimir Putin (Started World War 3.)
“Address to the Nation After 9/11” by George W. Bush (Prelude to 20 years of war.)
“Asia After Viet Nam” by Richard Nixon (Sino-American rapprochement.)
“Attention Is All You Need” by Google Brain (Invented modern artificial intelligence.)
“From a China Traveler” by David Rockefeller (Neoliberal honeymoon.)
“The Minority Nationalities in the Southwest” by Deng Xiaoping (How to build a nation.)
“Modernize and Never Seek Hegemony” by Deng Xiaoping (Father of globalization.)
“On Contradiction” by Mao Zedong (Set the basis of modern Chinese thought.)
“Remarks on the End of the War in Afghanistan” by Joe Biden (Graveyard of empires.)
“The Social Responsibility of Business” by Milton Friedman (Death knell for the welfare state.)
“Speech on China Joining WTO” by Bill Clinton (Birth of the Chinese Century.)

Autobiographies

Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino (Watch the films as you read to fully get it.)
Four Star Reviews, 1967-2007 by Roger Ebert (40 years at the movies.)
Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella (Good leadership is providing ways for others to excel.)
Revolutionary Suicide by Huey Newton (Rising up against the system is usually martyrdom.)
What Happened by Hillary Clinton (Her electoral losses defined the 21st century.)

Novels

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin (Living history is written in blood.)
The House of God by Samuel Shem (Only 57% of doctors would go into medicine again.)
The Long Walk by Stephen King (Works as a metaphor for pretty much everything.)
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (Worker’s-eye view of Silicon Valley pre-dot-com boom.)
Pet Sematary by Stephen King (Death makes a mockery of everything.)
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (Hypnotic in its intensity.)
Submission by Michel Houellebecq (Prescient satire of the “end of history”.)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Surreal reflections on Western imperialism.)
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Required reading/viewing for the Hindu diaspora.)

Short Stories

“American Gold Mine” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Any professional can relate.)
“Coding Machines” by Lawrence Kesteloot (Man’s reach exceeds his grasp.)
“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin (You can’t outsmart physics.)
“Fleep” by Jason Shiga (If you lose your memories, are you still the same person?)
“Frost and Fire” by Ray Bradbury (Man that is born of a woman is of few days.)
“A Full Life” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Climate change will take grueling years to play out.)
“Golden” by Nick Bostrom (Animals are trapped in a real-life horror movie.)
“A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka (The best gifts find the fewest admirers.)
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison (Allegory for modern life.)
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London (One is always only a few mistakes from death.)
“Yellow Card Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi (In the end, you’re alone.)

Comic Books

Amar Chitra Katha by Anant Pai (Single-handedly keeping diasporic Hinduism alive.)
Buddha by Osamu Tezuka (Existence is a fever dream.)
Here by Richard McGuire (The trouble is, you think you have time.)
Invincible by Robert Kirkman (Thrilling visions of U.S.-led, post-racial multilateralism.)
Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy (Life’s a beach and then you die.)
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (Failing to grow can be fatal.)
Swamp Thing by Alan Moore (It’s better to be a plant than an animal.)
Watchmen by Alan Moore (Who makes the world?)
Yossel: April 19, 1943 by Joe Kubert (When the state is your enemy, there’s nowhere to run.)

*All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder* by Frank Miller

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Daniel Moore

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