Once you decide to buy a boat you can’t wait. I was working out with Jane Beezer early one morning updating her on my boat search. I told her Becky and I had been to a couple of boat shows and looked at some new boats on Cape Cod. I told her we loved the boats but there was no way were paying a new boat price tag. And then Jane asked, “Have you talked to Skip?” No, I had not talked to Skip. But the fact that Jane referred to him by his first name made me think: “I better talk to Skip”. I met Skip Helme during my lunch break. I told him why I was there and he said “Let’s go look at … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2015
A Marvel of Modern Engineering
Shell's Prelude FLNG ship will be capable of liquefying natural gas at sea. The deck is covered in 280 miles of piping, comprised of 450,000 components. The ship will hold as much LNG as 175 Olympic-sized swimming pools and is longer than 4 football fields. Prelude will displace more water than 6 of the largest aircraft carriers, and it will produce 117% of the natural gas demand of Hong Kong in a year. … [Read more...]
MONEY’s Best Colleges
You never think you're old. I can't believe it was 25-years ago this Summer that I graduated high school from Tabor Academy in Marion, MA and was getting ready to head to Babson College in the Fall. And you don't often hear the word value and college in the same sentence. But that's exactly what MONEY's Best Colleges list does and it's certainly nice to see Babson at #2 earning the only "A" in the top five. … [Read more...]
The Monday Melee: Automobile Industry in Focus
What Will be the Auto-Industry of the Future? Bloomberg's Mark Gilbert writes: "The bottom left corner describes the state of play ever since Henry Ford's Model T began rolling off the production line: You buy your own ride from a carmaker, head for the open road whenever you choose, and park it in the driveway the rest of the time. The top right shows where Jonas reckons the industry is eventually headed: You'll order a self-driving vehicle that will pick you up and drop you off while charging you only for the distance you traversed (and without your ever having to worry about when the oil … [Read more...]
From One Circus to the Next
If the media reports are correct, the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras just agreed to the same deal that Greece’s euro-area creditors offered Greece before Tsipras abruptly demanded a referendum. The Greek people overwhelmingly voted to reject the bailout offer from creditors, but now Mr. Tsipras is apparently agreeing to what amounts to the same deal. So with that, the markets are telling us the Greek crisis is over—for now at least. For now, you say? Yup, for now could be until Sunday as euro-area parliaments still have to agree to the deal. But even if they do, we unfortunately … [Read more...]
Noble House
If you want some perspective into China’s stock market then you’ll want to read (or re-read in my case) Noble House by James Clavell. ‘This is for Ayn Rand - one of the real, true talents on this earth for which many, many thanks. James C, New York, 2 Sept 81’ - written on a copy of ‘Noble House’ sent to Ayn Rand whose writing James Clavell admired. As the fifth installment in the ‘Asian Saga’ this massive story brings together major stories and bloodlines from previous novels in the Asian Saga. The Struans - Clavell’s capitalist vanguards are at the helm of affairs in ‘Noble House’ … [Read more...]
A Short-Cut to the Global Investment Outlook
You can learn a lot about the world simply by observing. The same is true of the global investment landscape. Financial markets provide a short-cut to the global investment outlook. Share prices, for example, reflect the wisdom of millions of informed (some less so) investors with skin in the game. The crowd doesn’t always get it right (see China A-share market), but it is always a worthwhile exercise to listen to what the crowd is saying if only to know where your views differ. What is the crowd saying about the global investment outlook today? The graphic below charts the year-to-date … [Read more...]
This Summer, Win By Not Losing
Are you having a good Summer? It's beautiful here in Newport. Get outside and enjoy yourself. Don't let the stock market bog you down. And about your neighbor that's selling stock options? Let him have his 15-minutes of fame. … [Read more...]
The Monday Melee: Crumbling Infrastructure
America's Worst Roads: Christopher Ingraham writes in the Washington Post: The worst roads in America are in Washington D.C., where 92 percent of our major roadways are rated as "poor." Conversely, zero percent of D.C.'s roads received a "good" rating in the Federal Highway Administration data analyzed by TRIP. There is almost literally not a single good road in D.C. But D.C. is a special case, since it is not a state and doesn't have vast stretches of highway like most places in the U.S. do. So among the real states, the worst roads are in California where 51 percent of the highways are … [Read more...]