Resources - Sample 2019
How could I, of all people, not love Ken Langone? Aside from the facts that he's much smarter than I am, and much, much wealthier, we have a lot in common: poor kids from nowhere (east of Manhattan); Catholic; fell in love the summer after freshman year in college and married for life; went to Wall Street to make our fortune. The list goes on.
Hence, when his new book I Love Capitalism! was announced, I asked my bookseller to snag me the first copy he could lay hands on. This he did, and I devoured it in essentially one sitting. So much so that I immediately had to start reading it again.
Ken Langone is the guy who took Ross Perot's EDS public while working for a small firm that had never done an IPO before. Founded Home Depot (the story of how he had to scramble around to find two million dollars of seed money is alone worth the price of the book). Stood loyal to Dick Grasso of the NYSE as Elliot Spitzer (a.k.a. Client 9) tried to crucify both of them. Said no to Madoff a couple of weeks before the end, not primarily because he couldn't understand what Madoff was offering, but because that offer meant he was being disloyal to his past clients, many of whom Langone knew. Again: how could I not love this guy?
Well, be assured that you won't be able to not love him either, and that I Love Capitalism! is a must-read for every advisor.
I suppose I keep saying this, but must once again—on the merits, and as a service to subscribers who've come on board since the last time I said it: I cannot imagine how (much less why) a financial advisor would function without constant and grateful recourse to J.P. Morgan Asset Management's redoubtable Guide to the Markets. I spent a quiet half hour with the third quarter edition early one Sunday morning in October, and was completely bowled over by it. Every time I think it can't possibly get any better—in terms of providing exactly the economic and financial data advisors most often and most pressingly need—it somehow does. Honor is due.
Nearly a decade ago, I discovered the Swedish academic superstar Hans Rosling's video “200 countries, 200 years, four minutes.” I was delighted by its message of secularly improving world health and wealth, and even more so by the enthusiasm and charm of the man himself. In early 2016, Rosling was stricken with incurable pancreatic cancer; he canceled his many speaking engagements and other initiatives, and spent the last year of his life writing—with his son and daughter-in-law—Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. It is the summation of his life's work, and joins the Pinker and Easterbrook books as a sort of optimism trifecta: three great and important books published within a matter of months, debunking declinism and extolling the dramatic and accelerating progress of our world. I can't praise it enough; it's a must-read for the Spartans. Hans Rosling died in February 2017, but will live forever in Factfulness.