William Deresiewicz: How To Learn How To Think (LINK) [A great find/post/excerpt from Shane. It also reminds me of a recent comment Charlie Munger made about how he thinks the younger generations' lack of focus is doing them a great disservice. And a reply to a question about speed reading at the 2011 Berkshire Annual Meeting. Buffett had said that reading fast can give one a big advantage, but Munger replied with something along the lines that speed reading is overrated.... maybe because, like the excerpt in Shane's post, it increases how much thinking others do for you, and decreases the amount you think for yourself. Going slower may allow one to think things through, understand them better by coming to one's own conclusions, and in the end make fewer mistakes when that knowledge gets applied to something.]
Stung by Losses, Kyle Bass Hopes for Comeback [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
China’s Long Minsky Moment (LINK)
A Catalog of Montaigne’s Beam Inscriptions [H/T @jasonzweigwsj] (LINK)
Related book: The Complete Essays of Montaigne (also has a good narration on the audiobook)A response by Charlie Munger at the May 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting to a question about derivatives that I came across again and think is worth sharing:
Munger: The accounting being enormously deficient contributes to the risk. If you get paid enormous bonuses based on profits that don’t exist, you’ll keep going. What makes it difficult [to stop] is that most of the accounting profession doesn’t realize how stupidly it’s behaving. One person told me the accounting is better because positions are marked to market and said, “Don’t you want real-time information?” I replied that if you can mark to market to report any level of profits you want, you’ll get terrible human behavior. The person replied, “You just don’t understand accounting.”
...As sure as God made little green apples, this will cause a lot of trouble. This will go on and on, but eventually will cause a big dénouement.