Standing on the steps of the Madeleine church in the 8th arrondissement, looking down Rue Royale, you can see the Place de la Concorde. Where Rue Royale meets Rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, across the street from Gucci, you’ll see the mint green awnings of maison Ladurée, home to the macaron (pronounced mah-kuh-ron)—meringue like cookies, the color of Easter eggs, sandwiched with an emulsified filling. Groupe Holder is the private baking—not banking—conglomerate owned, founded and controlled by 77-year-old Francis Holder. The company is comprised of Ladurée’s 85 shops in 50 countries, the … [Read more...]
Illinois Politicians Trying to Kill Local Employee Freedom Initiatives
Big Labor is strong in Illinois, and it has marshaled its forces against attempts by local politicians to free their constituencies from the state's burdensome forced unionization laws. Illinois State House politicians are working hard to get a law to the governor banning any individual towns or cities from exercising freedom against Big Labor. Greg Bishop reports for the Illinois News Network: No local government in Illinois would be able to restrict collective bargaining issues for public or private unions under a measure that is one step closer to being sent to the governor’s … [Read more...]
Tucker Explains: Poverty Doesn’t Cause Instability. Envy Does.
You don’t need to be rich to live the good life. The good life is more a way of life. Not to sound too trippy but “it’s a feeling, man.” Sort of like the peace and love shared by Deadheads swaying to Jerry, or classic rock fans to Hendrix at Woodstock. You can’t always explain why you feel a certain way. You just do. That’s how it was for me growing up. I just felt good about my family. I liked my friends and life was good. But we weren’t rich. And it didn’t matter. We didn’t talk about our place in society. We were middle class and our place was a small single level cape in … [Read more...]
Can Reuse Save the Mega Brands, and the World?
Some of the world's biggest branded consumer products and food companies, including Procter & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo and Unilever are planning to begin trial sales of their products using reusable packaging. The recycling company, TerraCycle, will handle deliveries and pickups of the products and their packaging. Saabira Chaudhuri reports for The Wall Street Journal: Refillables once dominated industries such as beer and soft drinks but lost out to convenient, affordable single-use containers. In 1947, refillables made up 100% of soft-drink containers by volume and 86% of beer … [Read more...]
R.I.P. Jack Bogle.
Vanguard’s founder Jack Bogle contributed so much to each of us in the investment industry that it is impossible for me to know where to begin. In my case, it is perhaps a little easier to understand Jack’s importance in the investment industry because I was there when Jack founded Vanguard. In the Summer of 1971, Jack was still with his former employer, Wellington Management. Wellington was then, and remains today, based in Boston. And Jack’s firm was my favorite institutional research and trading client. Today, nearly 50 years later, I deal with a Jack Bogle firm nearly every … [Read more...]
Remembering Jack Bogle
You know the Vanguard 500 Index thanks to him. And someday, if a Mount Rushmore for investor legends is carved into a mountain side, Jack Bogle will be there front and center. Mr. Bogle passed away yesterday at the age of 89. He will be remembered for the low cost index fund—an idea he made into reality. Though he cautioned in recent months about his grave concerns regarding the explosive growth of indexing—perhaps a product also in its twilight—it turned out that offering a sound investment product at a low cost was, and is, a great idea for investors. Originally posted on Your … [Read more...]
Is Mikaela Shiffrin the World’s Best Athlete?
As Barry Svrluga writes in The Washington Post, there comes a time in each great athlete's career where they become so dominant they must be compared across time rather than to their same-sport contemporaries. I’ve written about Mikaela Shiffrin before. Then, as now, I agree with Bode Miller--I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anyone better in the sport of skiing, male or female. At a certain point, the manner in which the best in any field evaluate themselves can’t be against other practitioners of that same pursuit. LeBron isn’t measured against his contemporaries; he’s measured against … [Read more...]
Merry Christmas!
Jimmy Buffett, Merry Christmas, Alabama Jimmy Buffett, Christmas Island … [Read more...]
Fidelity is Boston and Boston is Fidelity
When you’re an intern at a start-up, you have certain responsibilities. For me, it was to go pick-up lunch when the founders ordered out. But what was cool about being the intern was that I had a seat at the table. I was privy to all their war stories. It was fun (for them) to talk about how hard it was when they were my age—broke, jobless and about to graduate from college. As they looked back it was the road not the destination. Easy for them to say. One of the stories I liked best was when the CEO would talk about how he decided to work in Boston. He said, “I knew it was going to be hard … [Read more...]
Babson College Announces New President
"Babson College, which marks its centennial next year, has tapped a familiar face to replace Kerry Healey, its outgoing president and the first woman to lead the Wellesley business school," reports the Boston Globe. "Stephen Spinelli Jr., a cofounder of Jiffy Lube International, Inc. who worked at Babson from 1993 to 2007, will become the college’s 14th president in July, the school said Friday." Laura Crimaldi writes: Spinelli, 63, is returning to the school after spending 11 years in Pennsylvania, where he served as president of Philadelphia University and negotiated the school’s merger … [Read more...]
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