Posted on August 14, 2014 by Mark Ford
Five years ago, Bill Bonner, my friend and business partner, asked me to speak to a group of about fifty old, wealthy white people meeting in an exclusive beach resort. He wanted me to discuss “the challenge of intergenerational wealth.” What the heck is intergenerational wealth? It’s the wealth you’ve acquired for your children, grandchildren, […]
Posted on August 12, 2014 by Robert Ringer
There are two basic kinds of actions. One is proaction, which puts you on the offensive and, all other things being equal, gives you a great deal of control over events. The other is reaction, which puts you on the defensive and relegates you to an inherent position of weakness. An interesting way of looking […]
Posted on August 7, 2014 by Robert Ringer
Violence is the darkest side of humanity, which, of course, is nothing new. But what is new, relatively speaking, is that the United States is now steeped in violence. It’s true that we aren’t into car bombings and beheadings, but we do love our daily fix of blood. You need only turn on the news, […]
Posted on July 31, 2014 by Robert Ringer
As religious fanaticism continues to pester civilized people, one wonders how civilization has managed to advance as far as it has. One would have thought that by this time religious fanaticism and intolerance would have become passé. Religion aside, it would seem that the least everyone could agree on is a single, self-evident point: that […]
Posted on July 29, 2014 by Robert Ringer
Like most people over sixty, I have a love-hate relationship with computers. I guess I’m lucky to have been able to jump on the caboose of the computer train just in the nick of time, back in 1982. By just in the nick of time, I mean that I was still young enough to become […]
Posted on July 24, 2014 by Robert Ringer
The “experts” seem to be in agreement on the cancer risk associated with eating farmed salmon. If you eat a thousand pounds of farmed salmon a week, you have a slightly higher risk of contracting cancer than a person who eats only salmon “caught in the wild.” I love salmon, but the word cancer always […]
Posted on July 22, 2014 by Robert Ringer
When I entered the Internet marketing world back in 2001, I decided to use Bank of America for our credit-card processing, figuring it was a safe bet to go with the biggest player in the field. Result? There is no way to describe what Bank of America put us through. I wasn’t that involved in […]
Posted on July 15, 2014 by Robert Ringer
When asked what he believed to be the greatest discovery of the 20th century, Albert Einstein is said to have answered, “Compound interest.” And wealthy people — you know, the ones who clip debt-instrument coupons as a pastime — would undoubtedly agree with him. Compound interest, however, can accrue on things other than money. […]
Posted on July 10, 2014 by Robert Ringer
Perception is a topic that has always fascinated me. When a person is revered, the reverence quickly disappears if something happens that changes the public’s perception of that individual. If, for example, the person on the receiving end of the adulation is exposed as a fraud or falls into disgrace, admiration soon turns to contempt. […]
Posted on July 8, 2014 by Robert Ringer
Billionaire J. Paul Getty was once asked to write a magazine article about how he became so rich, to which he responded, “Some people find oil. Others don’t.” Talk about playing into the hands of randomness advocates. I acknowledge that there’s a lot of luck involved in the way life turns out. But luck isn’t […]
