A friend of mine who is a nurse told me that on election night her hospital saw a surge in patients coming to the ER with chest pain. For some, the stress, suspense, and excitement or disappointment of election night became too much to handle. The last few months, there have been plenty of stories […]
News
The 2-Minute Thought: The Danes Are a Happy People
Source: Citi IO Earlier this year, Denmark once again was declared the world’s happiest country in the World Happiness Report Update 2016 released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations. Although Denmark lost the number one spot once in 2015, it otherwise has been ranked the world’s happiest country three out of […]
The 2-Minute Thought: Are the Super-Rich Really Smarter Than Everyone Else?
**Please note: The 2-Minute Thought will be on holiday for two weeks and will return on November 10** You may say yes, of course the super-rich are smarter. Or you may say no way, they’re just luckier. Or you may say, wait a minute, it depends. And yes, it does depend . . . But […]
A Modest Proposal…
There are a lot of moving parts to the U.S. economy today. Let me focus on just two. The first is the general feeling of anger across the country. As Robert Samuelson the columnist in The Washington Post said recently, “the sense of boundless optimism and national superiority that characterized the boom years” of the […]
So What’s In Your Wallet?…
I am guessing $4,200 in crisp greenbacks. Statistically I am right but in reality I know I am way off the mark. Let’s do the math. Divide the value of all the dollars in circulation by the U.S. population (man, woman and child) and the result is that everyone should be walking around with $4,200 […]
On Getting People To Say Yes…
Social psychologist Robert Cialdini is an expert on getting others to comply with our requests. How do we get people to buy from us, contribute to our charities, accept a work offer, or join our causes? Cialdini has studied hundreds if not thousands of salespeople, direct marketers, television advertisers, nonprofit fundraisers, public relations specialists, and […]
Fighting the Last Battle…
Learning from past mistakes is generally a good thing. But sometimes efforts to avoid past fumbles can result in a failure to anticipate the next big thing. The general consensus today is that excessive risk taking by large financial institutions led to the 2008-2009 financial collapse. The idea that losses at one institution can spread […]
The 2-Minute Thought: Speaking a foreign language can make you more rational
Source: University of Toledo If you’re fortunate enough to speak more than one language, you have many advantages over those who speak just one. The pluses go beyond navigating another country with ease or having rich interactions with the people who live there. Various studies show that bilingual and multilingual people are more cognitively flexible […]
The 2-Minute Thought: For how long could you do nothing?
Investing is one domain where waiting quietly and doing nothing is often the best course. Why? Because most often the investment actions we take are mistakes. Behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman once cited a study showing that, “every action the individual investor takes has a negative expected return. On average, they lose, and the more ideas […]
The 2-Minute Thought: A Contrarian Signal for Oil and Gas?
Imagine this: You are at a stock investment conference where dozens of companies bring their leadership to tell their story to potential investors. You, the investor, get to choose from several companies presenting at the same time. In one room, there is a very popular company, and the room is overflowing with analysts and portfolio […]
The 2-Minute Thought: The State of the Workday Lunch
If you were asked what your lunch break at work is like, you may well answer, “What lunch break?” Forget about the multi-course restaurant meal from decades past. Forget about the lunch hour between 12 and 1 — something The Washington Post calls “a charming relic of the past, like phone cords and typewriters.” Today […]
The Tail of Two Cities…
I was on the Board for many years of the Humane Society here in Burlington and one of the things in life you learn is, there are dog people and there are cat people and there are not that many who are both dog and cat people. Spoiler alert – I am a dog person. […]
