just some links: movies, money, voting
Mood: frustrated
Posted on 2010-11-29 16:21:00
Tags: politics links
Words: 126

Animated Films for Grown-Ups - I really liked Spirited Away, and I think I need to watch more of these.

The best investment advice you'll never get - surprisingly interesting article wrapped around "index funds, not managed funds".

What Voters Really Care About - I'm not sure how trustworthy the results are. (since it's easy to ask this question but very hard to see how it would play out in practice) Still, it surprises me that "cheating on taxes" is worse than "convicted of violent crime"! And "homosexual" only makes it slightly less likely to get votes, except for Republicans. (and "believe in evolution" is pretty negative for voters over 65...)

XKCD strips classified by topic - good excuse to go back and view my favorites again, like this one!

8 comments

Comment from gerdemb:
2010-11-30T10:02:40+00:00
Interesting survey. In summary, women seem to dislike someone who committed a crime (prostitution or drunk driving), over 65 dislike irresponsible financial activity (raising own salary or having large debts) and Republicans dislike categories of people such as homosexuals, atheists and Muslims. Also if you're over 65 you don't like people who believe in evolution....

Comment from copperwolf:
2010-11-30T12:12:14+00:00
I just read the list of films. Personally, I found "Up" to be more touching and meaningful than "Wall-E," but I like every Pixar film I've seen. Also most Miyazaki films I've seen -- the exception was "Howl's Moving Castle;" reading the book years ago may have ruined the movie for me.

Anyway, 's a good list to refer to when updating our Netflix queue.

Comment from brittongregory:
2010-11-30T13:47:43+00:00
I like the investing article you read. I'm not convinced that you can beat the market through some combination of active funds, individual securities, and/or market timing, and it's good to know that I've got company.

Comment from djedi:
2010-11-30T16:23:51+00:00
I think there's some "beating the market" to be done using a "values-investing" approach. That's where you aren't trying to "market-time" but rather using an index fund with a more interesting index. For example, for decades you could use a capitalization measure as your index and only invest in ones over a certain threshold and make a better return than the market as a whole, although over time, as this index because better known, it slowly ebbed in efficacy. :) Share values do eventually correct themselves.

But yeah, unless you're a professional economist studying different methods of company evaluation, index funds are the way to go.

Comment from brittongregory:
2010-11-30T17:20:32+00:00
Oh, I agree 100%. I didn't say you couldn't beat the market -- for some definition of "market" -- I just said you couldn't do it through the aforementioned methods. Investing in low-cost index funds, as per the article, comes to mind; research (even Morningstar's!) shows time and again that expense ratio is the best predictor of (after-expenses!) performance...

But I'll stop geeking out now. ;)

Comment from djedi:
2010-11-30T17:43:00+00:00
Yeah, I did'nt mean to contradict you, more go into finer details. I also can geek out on this stuff. It's fun!

I wonder if you can make an index fund that invests in....index funds! and their weight is based on their expense ratio!

Comment from brittongregory:
2010-11-30T22:01:27+00:00
Nice!

Comment from gregstoll:
2010-11-30T22:11:39+00:00
I would happily invest in such a meta-index fund, just for the street cred!

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