A while ago, economists Sara Solnick and David Hemenway conducted a survey where they asked participants if they would rather earn $50,000 a year while other people made $25,000, or earn $100,000 a year while other people got $250,000. Sit down for this one. The majority of folks selected the first option. They would rather …
— Bill Bonner Whether it was on a prehistoric African Savannah or in modern America, the instinct is the same. But who’s “us”? And who’s “them”? It’s hard to say… and probably not worth trying. The instinct that worked so well in the private space of a small tribe is a catastrophe in the large, …
— Yuval Noah Harari That’s how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously.”
Imagine you had to walk across the Rub’ al Khali – the “Empty Quarter” – of the Arabian Peninsula. This 250,000-square-mile desert is the largest sand desert in the world. Sand dunes there reach as high as 800 feet. It rains less than two inches a year. The surface temperatures reach 125 degrees. Think about …
— The Essays of Warren Buffett p. 103 After buying a farm, would a rational owner next order his real estate agent to start selling off pieces of it whenever a neighboring property was sold at a lower price? Or would you sell your house to whatever bidder was available at 9:31 on some morning …