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Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble
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Warren Buffett
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Silence is golden, and gold is up these days, so silence is a solid investment.
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Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
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Jesus taught several great lessons on wise investing, including The Parable of The Bags of Gold, The Parable of the Tenants and the Parable of The Sower.
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Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
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Love is not a businessman who wants to see a return on his investments. And imagination needs only a few nails on which to hang its veil. Whether they are of gold, tin, or covered with rust makes no difference to it. Wherever it gets caught, it is caught. Thornbush or rosebush, as soon as the veil of moonlight and mother-of-pearl has fallen on it, either becomes a fairy tale out of A Thousand and One Nights
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Erich Maria Remarque (Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country)
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Humanity came out of hell, Darrow. Gold did not rise out of chance. We rose out of necessity. Out of chaos, born from a species that devoured its planet instead of investing in the future. Pleasure over all, damn the consequences. The brightest minds enslaved to an economy that demanded toys instead of space exploration or technologies that could revolutionize our race. They created robots, neutering the work ethic of mankind, creating generations of entitled locusts. Countries hoarded their resources, suspicious of one another. There grew to be twenty different factions with nuclear weapons. Twenty—each ruled by greed or zealotry. “So when we conquered mankind, it wasn’t for greed. It wasn’t for glory. It was to save our race. It was to still the chaos, to create order, to sharpen mankind to one purpose—ensuring our future. The Colors are the spine of that aim. Allow the hierarchies to shift and the order begins to crumble. Mankind will not aspire to be great. Men will aspire to be great.
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Pierce Brown (Golden Son (Red Rising Saga, #2))
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THE FIVE LAWS OF GOLD I. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earngs to create an estate for his future and that of his family. II. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field. III. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling. IV. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. V. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon)
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Here’s the dirty little secret: Fiat currency is designed to lose value. Its very purpose is to confiscate your wealth and transfer it to the government. Each time the government prints a new dollar and spends it, the government gets the full purchasing power of that dollar.
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Michael Maloney (Guide To Investing in Gold & Silver: Protect Your Financial Future)
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Please allow me to offer a simple financial plan. Invest in chocolate. Buy bars. Lots of bars. If we do enter anything approximating a real financial depression, you will not be able to improve your mood with gold.
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Anita Renfroe (Don't Say I Didn't Warn You: Kids, Carbs, and the Coming Hormonal Apocalypse)
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In the end it was currency debasement and pure deficit spending to fund the military, public works, social programs, and war that brought down the Roman Empire.
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Michael Maloney (Guide To Investing in Gold & Silver: Protect Your Financial Future)
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Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death. The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.
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Howard Zinn (A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present)
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gold is valuable as a currency or investment because we believe it is valuable (which is the same reason for valuing money itself). Gold’s value as currency is an abstract social construct.
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Paul Vigna (The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order)
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Try not to breathe,” I tell Lira. “It might get stuck halfway out.”
Lira flicks up her hood. “You should try not to talk then,” she retorts. “Nobody wants your words being preserved for eternity.”
“They’re pearls of wisdom, actually.”
I can barely see Lira’s eyes under the mass of dark fur from her coat, but the mirthless curl of her smile is ever-present. It lingers in calculated amusement as she considers what to say next. Readies to ricochet the next blow.
Lira pulls a line of ice from her hair, artfully indifferent. “If that is what pearls are worth these days, I’ll make sure to invest in diamonds.”
“Or gold,” I tell her smugly. “I hear it’s worth its weight.”
Kye shakes the snow from his sword and scoffs. “Anytime you two want to stop making me feel nauseated, go right ahead.”
“Are you jealous because I’m not flirting with you?” Madrid asks him, warming her finger on the trigger mechanism of her gun.
“I don’t need you to flirt with me,” he says. “I already know you find me irresistible.”
Madrid reholsters her gun. “It’s actually quite easy to resist you when you’re dressed like that.”
Kye looks down at the sleek red coat fitted snugly to his lithe frame. The fur collar cuddles against his jaw and obscures the bottoms of his ears, making it seem as though he has no neck at all. He throws Madrid a smile.
“Is it because you think I look sexier wearing nothing?”
Torik lets out a withering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. I’m not sure whether it’s from the hours we’ve gone without food or his inability to wear cutoffs in the biting cold, but his patience seems to be wearing thin.
“I could swear that I’m on a life-and-death mission with a bunch of lusty kids,” he says. “Next thing I know, the lot of you will be writing love notes in rum bottles.”
“Okay,” Madrid says. “Now I feel nauseated.”
I laugh.
”
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Alexandra Christo (To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1))
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I don't want to be around people who accept me as is, in my unrefined state of becoming. I consistently want people around me who push and encourage me to be my ultimate best, who bring out the inner diamonds. I want to be around those intellectual giants who extract the gold within me, those who force me to read, to attend classes, seminars, conferences, and who steep me in an environment of perpetual growth and upward mobility. Not trying to be funny, but I've learned that I simply cannot afford to invest too much time around mediocrity. It's contagious.
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Brandi L. Bates
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Yes, breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you’re young—after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That’s true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle—in everything.
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Mark Manson
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Are the returns on my journey equal to the length of the road behind me? And if not, have I realized the pressing need to surrender to God the road in front of me?
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Craig D. Lounsbrough (Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Profound Living)
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Improving your abilities in high-priority areas is always a good investment in yourself that will pay off in the long run.
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John C. Maxwell (Don't Manage Your Time-Manage Your Life: Lesson 13 from Leadership Gold)
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It is the investment of time into perfecting a skill or skills that gives birth to celebrities, billionaires, inventors, entrepreneurs, Olympic gold medalists and so on
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Sunday Adelaja (No One Is Better Than You)
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Gold is a constant. It's like a North Star.
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Steve Forbes
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Which desirest thou the most? Is it the gratification of thy desires of each day, a jewel, a bit of finery, better raiment, more food; things quickly gone and forgotten? Or is it substantial belongings, gold, lands, herds, merchandise, income-bringing investments? The coins thou takest from thy purse bring the first. The coins thou leavest within it will bring the latter.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon: George S. Clason International Bestseller Book ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ for How to Grow Rich)
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Most of us know how much we earn every month, but not many of us are clear about where our money gets spent. This exercise should show you clearly how you should manage your finances to achieve your goals.
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Vinod Pottayil (What Every Indian Should Know Before Investing: Investment ideas on Gold, PPF, Stocks, Mutual Fund, Life Insurance and more... explained in simple, easy-to-understand language for Indian investors!)
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What insanity propels me to incessantly invest in a world that never ceases to fail me? And what ignorance bewitches me so thoroughly that it keeps me from investing in a God who never ceases to be unfailing?
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Craig D. Lounsbrough (Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Profound Living)
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1. Start thy purse to fattening 2. Control thy expenditures 3. Make thy gold multiply 4. Guard thy treasures from loss 5. Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment 6. Insure a future income 7. Increase thy ability to earn
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon: 9789387669369 (GP Self-Help Collection Book 1))
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The problem with fiat is that simply maintaining the wealth you already own requires significant active management and expert decision-making. You need to develop expertise in portfolio allocation, risk management, stock and bond valuation, real estate markets, credit markets, global macro trends, national and international monetary policy, commodity markets, geopolitics, and many other arcane and highly specialized fields in order to make informed investment decisions that allow you to maintain the wealth you already earned. You effectively need to earn your money twice with fiat, once when you work for it, and once when you invest it to beat inflation. The simple gold coin saved you from all of this before fiat.
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Saifedean Ammous (The Fiat Standard: The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization)
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Poirot looked at me meditatively. “You have an extraordinary effect on me, Hastings. You have so strongly the flair in the wrong direction that I am almost tempted to go by it! You are that wholly admirable type of man, honest, credulous, honourable, who is invariably taken in by any scoundrel. You are the type of man who invests in doubtful oil fields, and non-existent gold mines. From hundreds like you, the swindler makes his daily bread. Ah, well—I shall study this Commander Challenger. You have awakened my doubts.” “My dear Poirot,” I cried, angrily. “You are perfectly absurd. A man who has knocked about the world like I have—” “Never learns,” said Poirot, sadly. “It is amazing—but there it is.” “Do you suppose I’d have made a success of my ranch out in the Argentine if I were the kind of credulous fool you make out?” “Do not enrage yourself, mon ami. You have made a great success of it—you and your wife.” “Bella,” I said, “always goes by my judgement.” “She is as wise as she is charming,” said Poirot. “Let us not quarrel my friend. See, there ahead of us, it says Mott’s Garage. That, I think, is the garage mentioned by Mademoiselle Buckley. A few inquiries will soon give us the truth of that little matter.
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Agatha Christie (Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot, #8))
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There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the ‘Yale News’—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the ‘well-rounded man.’ This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
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When foreign military spending [bombing Korea and Vietnam] forced the U.S. balance of payments into deficit and drove the United States off gold in 1971, central banks were left without the traditional asset used to settle payments imbalances. The alternative by default was to invest their subsequent payments inflows in U.S. Treasury bonds, as if these still were “as good as gold.” Central banks have been holding some $4 trillion of these bonds in their international reserves for the past few years — and these loans have financed most of the U.S. Government’s domestic budget deficits for over three decades. Given the fact that about half of U.S. Government discretionary spending is for military operations — including more than 750 foreign military bases and increasingly expensive operations in the oil-producing and transporting countries — the international financial system is organized in a way that finances the Pentagon, along with U.S. buyouts of foreign assets expected to yield much more than the Treasury bonds that foreign central banks hold.
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Michael Hudson (The Bubble and Beyond)
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The empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires were simply much shrewder in financing their conquests. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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A guy from Bear Stearns had visited our class, thin and bald with a gold watch. He told us that if we were interested in getting into finance, we had better work hard and smart because a lot of machines were able to make investment decisions now, and in the future, computer programs would run everything.
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Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
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Fear so, sir. I’d be back in the fight, had we the gear.” If he were a Gold or Obsidian, he’d be back in the fight by month’s end, but we can’t spend our near-extinguished supply of prosthetics on regular infantry. Bad investment. I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn’t. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.
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Pierce Brown (Dark Age (Red Rising Saga #5))
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As we’ll see, the 4% Roman rate of return is about the same as the aggregate return on capital (when stocks and bonds are considered together) in the U.S. in the twentieth century, and perhaps even a bit more than the aggregate return expected in the next century. (The 4% Roman rate was gold-based, so the return was a real, that is, after-inflation, return.) The
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William J. Bernstein (The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio)
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We have good news and bad news. The good news is that the dismal vision of human sexuality reflected in the standard narrative is mistaken. Men have not evolved to be deceitful cads, nor have millions of years shaped women into lying, two-timing gold-diggers. But the bad news is that the amoral agencies of evolution have created in us a species with a secret it just can’t keep. Homo sapiens evolved to be shamelessly, undeniably, inescapably sexual. Lusty libertines. Rakes, rogues, and roués. Tomcats and sex kittens. Horndogs. Bitches in heat.1 True, some of us manage to rise above this aspect of our nature (or to sink below it). But these preconscious impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point, the zero in our own personal number system. Our evolved tendencies are considered “normal” by the body each of us occupies. Willpower fortified with plenty of guilt, fear, shame, and mutilation of body and soul may provide some control over these urges and impulses. Sometimes. Occasionally. Once in a blue moon. But even when controlled, they refuse to be ignored. As German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.) Acknowledged or not, these evolved yearnings persist and clamor for our attention. And there are costs involved in denying one’s evolved sexual nature, costs paid by individuals, couples, families, and societies every day and every night. They are paid in what E. O. Wilson called “the less tangible currency of human happiness that must be spent to circumvent our natural predispositions.”2 Whether or not our society’s investment in sexual repression is a net gain or loss is a question for another time. For now, we’ll just suggest that trying to rise above nature is always a risky, exhausting endeavor, often resulting in spectacular collapse. Any attempt to understand who we are, how we got to be this way, and what to do about it must begin by facing up to our evolved human sexual predispositions. Why do so many forces resist our sustained fulfillment? Why is conventional marriage so much damned work? How has the incessant, grinding campaign of socio-scientific insistence upon the naturalness of sexual monogamy combined with a couple thousand years of fire and brimstone failed to rid even the priests, preachers, politicians, and professors of their prohibited desires? To see ourselves as we are, we must begin by acknowledging that of all Earth’s creatures, none is as urgently, creatively, and constantly sexual as Homo sapiens.
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Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
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We depended on the indigenous of this land to teach us farming and harvesting skills that we largely lacked upon arrival. Indeed, had it not been for the wisdom of native North Americans, the first attempt at European colonization would have failed entirely. We were starving in droves, perishing in Jamestown because we had spent so much time looking for gold that we’d forgotten to plant crops that could sustain us through the harsh winters. Four hundred–plus years later that folly has been repeated, at least metaphorically, in an economy so focused on the chasing of wealth for wealth’s sake that it has failed to re-sow its crops, to invest in the future, to actually produce anything of value as it opts, instead, to chase financial fortunes and immediate riches.
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Tim Wise (Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority)
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This, then, is the fourth cure for a lean purse, and of great importance if it prevent thy purse from being emptied once it has become well filled. Guard thy treasure from loss by investing only where thy principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if desirable, and where thou will not fail to collect a fair rental. Consult with wise men. Secure the advice of those experienced in the profitable handling of gold. Let their wisdom protect thy treasure from unsafe investments.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon)
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Most non-European empires of the early modern era were established by great conquerors such as Nurhaci and Nader Shah, or by bureaucratic and military elites as in the Qing and Ottoman empires. Financing wars through taxes and plunder (without making fine distinctions between the two), they owed little to credit systems, and they cared even less about the interests of bankers and investors. In Europe, on the other hand, kings and generals gradually adopted the mercantile way of thinking, until merchants and bankers became the ruling elite. The European conquest of the world was increasingly financed through credit rather than taxes, and was increasingly directed by capitalists whose main ambition was to receive maximum returns on their investments. The empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires were simply much shrewder in financing their conquests. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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The idea that someone could, or would want to, experience uninterrupted happiness over a period of days, let alone years, is ludicrous.
Anyone who feels pleasant and bubbly all the time is either mentally disabled or hooked on crack.
Money, on the other hand, is steady. You can spend it, invest it or light a little bit on fire in an intern’s ass. Either way, money gets to sleep over.
Money is a resource that makes it easier for you to find your purpose and achieve your goals, not because you are buying happiness, but because you are eliminating the desperation that drains happiness and distracts you from your purpose.
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Ari Gold (The Gold Standard: Rules to Rule By)
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What if, however, humans exceed animals in their capacity for violence precisely because they speak? As Hegel was already well aware, there is something violent in the very symbolisation of a thing, which equals its mortification. This violence operates at multiple levels. Language simplifies the designated thing, reducing it to a single feature. It dismembers the thing, destroying its organic unity, treating its parts and properties as autonomous. It inserts the thing into a field of meaning which is ultimately external to it. When we name gold “gold,” we violently extract a metal from its natural texture, investing into it our dreams of wealth, power, spiritual purity, and so on, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the immediate reality of gold.
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Slavoj Žižek (Violence: Six Sideways Reflections)
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from Labor Day through Halloween, the place is almost unbearably beautiful. The air during these weeks seems less like ether and more like a semisolid, clear and yet dense somehow, as if it were filled with the finest imaginable golden pollen. The sky tends toward brilliant ice-blue, and every thing and being is invested with a soft, gold-ish glow. Tin cans look good in this light; discarded shopping bags do. I’m not poet enough to tell you what the salt marsh looks like at high tide. I confess that when I lived year-round in Provincetown, I tended to become irritable toward the end of October, when one supernal day after another seemed to imply that the only reasonable human act was to abandon your foolish errands and plans, go outside, and fall to your knees.
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Michael Cunningham (Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown)
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The air is crisp on my skin, and though my hands are wrapped under thick gloves, I shove my fists into my pockets anyway. The wind penetrates here through every layer, including skin. I’m dressed in fur so thick that walking feels like an exertion. It slows me down more than I would like, and even though I know there’s no imminent threat of attack, I still don’t like being unprepared in case one comes. It shakes me more than the cold ever could.
When I turn to Lira, the ends of her hair are white with frost. “Try not to breathe,” I tell her. “It might get stuck halfway out.”
Lira flicks up her hood. “You should try not to talk then,” she retorts. “Nobody wants your words being preserved for eternity.”
“They’re pearls of wisdom, actually.”
I can barely see Lira’s eyes under the mass of dark fur from her coat, but the mirthless curl of her smile is ever-present. It lingers in calculated amusement as she considers what to say next. Readies to ricochet the next blow.
Lira pulls a line of ice from her hair, artfully indifferent. “If that is what pearls are worth these days, I’ll make sure to invest in diamonds.”
“Or gold,” I tell her smugly. “I hear it’s worth its weight.”
Kye shakes the snow from his sword and scoffs. “Anytime you two want to stop making me feel nauseated, go right ahead.”
“Are you jealous because I’m not flirting with you?” Madrid asks him, warming her finger on the trigger mechanism of her gun.
“I don’t need you to flirt with me,” he says. “I already know you find me irresistible.”
Madrid reholsters her gun. “It’s actually quite easy to resist you when you’re dressed like that.”
Kye looks down at the sleek red coat fitted snugly to his lithe frame. The fur collar cuddles against his jaw and obscures the bottoms of his ears, making it seem as though he has no neck at all. He throws Madrid a smile.
“Is it because you think I look sexier wearing nothing?”
Torik lets out a withering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. I’m not sure whether it’s from the hours we’ve gone without food or his inability to wear cutoffs in the biting cold, but his patience seems to be wearing thin.
“I could swear that I’m on a life-and-death mission with a bunch of lusty kids,” he says. “Next thing I know, the lot of you will be writing love notes in rum bottles.”
“Okay,” Madrid says. “Now I feel nauseated.
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Alexandra Christo (To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1))
“
ago: THE FIVE LAWS OF GOLD 1. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family. 2. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field. 3. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling. 4. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. 5. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon: 9789387669369 (GP Self-Help Collection Book 1))
“
At this point in your Total Money Makeover, you are debt-free except for the house, and you have three to six months of expenses ($10,000+/–) saved for emergencies. At this point in your Total Money Makeover, you are putting 15 percent of your income into retirement savings and you are investing for your kid’s college education with firm goals in sight on both. You are now one of the top 5 to 10 percent of Americans because you have some wealth, have a plan, and are under control. At this point in your Total Money Makeover, you are in grave danger! You are in danger of settling for “Good Enough.” You are at the eighteen-mile mark of a marathon, and now that it is time to reach for the really big gold ring, the final two Baby Steps could seem out of your reach. Let me assure you that many have been at this point. Some have stopped and regretted it; others have stayed gazelle-intense long enough to finish the race. The latter have looked and seen just one major hurdle left, after which they can walk with pride among the ultra-fit who call themselves financial marathoners. They can count themselves among the elite who have finished The Total Money Makeover.
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Dave Ramsey (The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness)
“
Spearing a quail egg with her fork, Evie popped it into her mouth. “What is to be done about Mr. Egan?”
His shoulders lifted in a graceful shrug. “As soon as he is sober enough to walk, he’ll be dismissed.”
Evie brushed away a stray lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek. “There is no one to replace him.”
“Yes, there is. Until a suitable manager can be found, I’ll run the club.”
The quail egg seemed to stick in her throat, and Evie choked a little. Hastily she reached for her wine, washed it down, and regarded him with bulging eyes. How could he say something so preposterous? “You can’t.”
“I can hardly do worse than Egan. He hasn’t managed a damned thing in months… before long, this place will be falling down around our ears.”
“You said you hated work!”
“So I did. But I feel that I should try it at least once, just to be certain.”
She began to stammer in her anxiety. “You’ll pl-play at this for a few days, and then you’ll tire of it.”
“I can’t afford to tire of it, my love. Although the club is still profitable, its value is in decline. Your father has a load of outstanding debt that must be settled. If the people who owe him can’t muster the cash, we’ll have to take property, jewelry, artwork… whatever they can manage. Having a good idea of the value of things, I can negotiate some acceptable settlements. And there are other problems I haven’t yet mentioned… Jenner has a string of failing Thoroughbreds that have lost a fortune at Newmarket. And he’s made some insane investments— ten thousand pounds he put into an alleged gold mine in Flintshire— a swindle that even a child should have seen through.”
“Oh God,” Evie murmured, rubbing her forehead. “He’s been ill— people have taken advantage—”
“Yes. And now, even if we wanted to sell the club, we couldn’t without first putting it in order. If there were an alternative, believe me, I would find it. But this place is a sieve, with no one who is capable or willing to stop the holes. Except for me.”
“You know nothing about filling holes!” she cried, appalled by his arrogance.
Sebastian responded with a bland smile and the slightest arch of one brow. Before he could open his mouth to reply, she clapped her hands over her ears. "Oh, don't say it, don't!" When she saw that he was obligingly holding his silence-though a devilish gleam remained in his eyes-she lowered her hands cautiously.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
“
Under these circumstances, revenue from the New World in the form of exports of gold and silver was critical. The Spanish government, however, imposed strict rules limiting economic exchange—a system known as mercantilism—under the mistaken belief that this would maximize its income from the colonies. Exports from the New World could go only to Spain, indeed, to a single port in Spain; they were required to travel in Spanish ships; and the colonies were not permitted to compete with Spanish producers of manufactured goods. Mercantilism, as Adam Smith was to demonstrate in The Wealth of Nations, created huge inefficiencies and was highly detrimental to economic growth. It also had very significant political consequences: access to markets and the right to make productive economic investments were limited to individuals or corporations favored by the state. This meant that the route to personal wealth lay through the state and through gaining political influence. This then led to a rentier rather than an entrepreneurial mentality, in which energy was spent seeking political favor rather than initiating new enterprises that would create wealth. The landowning and merchant classes that emerged under this system grew rich because of the political protection they received from the state.
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Francis Fukuyama (Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy)
“
Money has an even darker side. For although money builds universal trust between strangers, this trust is invested not in humans, communities or sacred values, but in money itself and in the impersonal systems that back it. We do not trust the stranger, or the next-door neighbour – we trust the coin they hold. If they run out of coins, we run out of trust. As money brings down the dams of community, religion and state, the world is in danger of becoming one big and rather heartless marketplace. Hence the economic history of humankind is a delicate dance. People rely on money to facilitate cooperation with strangers, but they’re afraid it will corrupt human values and intimate relations. With one hand people willingly destroy the communal dams that held at bay the movement of money and commerce for so long. Yet with the other hand they build new dams to protect society, religion and the environment from enslavement to market forces. It is common nowadays to believe that the market always prevails, and that the dams erected by kings, priests and communities cannot long hold back the tides of money. This is naive. Brutal warriors, religious fanatics and concerned citizens have repeatedly managed to trounce calculating merchants, and even to reshape the economy. It is therefore impossible to understand the unification of humankind as a purely economic process. In order to understand how thousands of isolated cultures coalesced over time to form the global village of today, we must take into account the role of gold and silver, but we cannot disregard the equally crucial role of steel.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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Peugeot belongs to a particular genre of legal fictions called ‘limited liability companies’. The idea behind such companies is among humanity’s most ingenious inventions. Homo sapiens lived for untold millennia without them. During most of recorded history property could be owned only by flesh-and-blood humans, the kind that stood on two legs and had big brains. If in thirteenth-century France Jean set up a wagon-manufacturing workshop, he himself was the business. If a wagon he’d made broke down a week after purchase, the disgruntled buyer would have sued Jean personally. If Jean had borrowed 1,000 gold coins to set up his workshop and the business failed, he would have had to repay the loan by selling his private property – his house, his cow, his land. He might even have had to sell his children into servitude. If he couldn’t cover the debt, he could be thrown in prison by the state or enslaved by his creditors. He was fully liable, without limit, for all obligations incurred by his workshop. If you had lived back then, you would probably have thought twice before you opened an enterprise of your own. And indeed this legal situation discouraged entrepreneurship. People were afraid to start new businesses and take economic risks. It hardly seemed worth taking the chance that their families could end up utterly destitute. This is why people began collectively to imagine the existence of limited liability companies. Such companies were legally independent of the people who set them up, or invested money in them, or managed them. Over the last few centuries such companies have become the main players in the economic arena, and we have grown so used to them that we forget they exist only in our imagination.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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Naval’s Laws The below is Naval’s response to the question “Are there any quotes you live by or think of often?” These are gold. Take the time necessary to digest them. “These aren’t all quotes from others. Many are maxims that I’ve carved for myself.” Be present above all else. Desire is suffering (Buddha). Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else (Buddhist saying). If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day. Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else. All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. Earn with your mind, not your time. 99% of all effort is wasted. Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. Praise specifically, criticize generally (Warren Buffett). Truth is that which has predictive power. Watch every thought. (Always ask, “Why am I having this thought?”) All greatness comes from suffering. Love is given, not received. Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts (Eckhart Tolle). Mathematics is the language of nature. Every moment has to be complete in and of itself. A Few of Naval’s Tweets that are Too Good to Leave Out “What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” “If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.” “We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.” “The guns aren’t new. The violence isn’t new. The connected cameras are new, and that changes everything.” “You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus.” “My one repeated learning in life: ‘There are no adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.” “A busy mind accelerates the passage of subjective time.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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I'm renowned within the ton as being cool under fire- around you, I'm never cool. I'm heated- I seethe- I burn with desire. If I'm in the same room, all I can think about is heat- your heat- and how you'll feel around me."
Patience felt the heat rise, a real force between them.
"I've gained the reputation of being the soul of discretion- now look at me. I've seduced my godmother's niece- and been seduced by her. I share her bed openly, even under my godmother's roof." His lips twisted wryly. "So much for discretion."
He drew a deep breath; his chest brushed her breasts.
"And as for my vaunted, up-until-you 'legendary' control- the instant I'm inside you that evaporates like water on hot steel."
What prompted her Patience never knew. His lips were so close- with her teeth, she nipped the lower. "I told you to let go- I won't break."
The tension, pouring off him in waves, eased, just a little. He sighed, and rested his forehead on hers. "I don't like losing control- it's like losing myself- in you."
She felt him gather himself, felt the tension swell and coalesce about them.
"It's giving myself to you- so that I'm in your keeping."
The words, low and gravelly, rolled through her; closing her eyes, she drew in a shallow breath. "And you don't like doing that."
"I don't like it- but I crave it. I don't approve of it, yet I yearn for it." His words feathered her cheek, then his lips touched hers. "Do you understand? I haven't any choice."
Patience felt his chest swell as he drew a deep breath.
"I love you."
She shivered, eyes shut tight, and felt the world shift about her.
"Losing myself in you- giving my heart and soul into your keeping- is part of that."
His lips brushed hers in an inexpressibly tender caress.
"Trusting you is part of that. Telling you I love you is part of that."
His lips touched hers; Patience didn't wait for more. She kissed him. Letting go of the post, she slid her hands up, framing his face, so she could let him know- let him feel- her response to all he'd said.
He felt it, sensed it- and reacted; his arms locked tight about her. She couldn't breathe, but she didn't care. All she cared about was the emotion that held them, that flowed so effortlessly between them.
Silver and gold, it wound about them, investing each touch with its magic. Silver and gold, it shimmered about them, and quivered in their fractured breaths. It was immediate compulsion and future promise, heavenly delight and earthly pleasure. It was here and now- and forever.
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Stephanie Laurens (A Rake's Vow (Cynster, #2))
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The Ten Ways to Evaluate a Market provide a back-of-the-napkin method you can use to identify the attractiveness of any potential market. Rate each of the ten factors below on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is terrible and 10 fantastic. When in doubt, be conservative in your estimate: Urgency. How badly do people want or need this right now? (Renting an old movie is low urgency; seeing the first showing of a new movie on opening night is high urgency, since it only happens once.) Market Size. How many people are purchasing things like this? (The market for underwater basket-weaving courses is very small; the market for cancer cures is massive.) Pricing Potential. What is the highest price a typical purchaser would be willing to spend for a solution? (Lollipops sell for $0.05; aircraft carriers sell for billions.) Cost of Customer Acquisition. How easy is it to acquire a new customer? On average, how much will it cost to generate a sale, in both money and effort? (Restaurants built on high-traffic interstate highways spend little to bring in new customers. Government contractors can spend millions landing major procurement deals.) Cost of Value Delivery. How much will it cost to create and deliver the value offered, in both money and effort? (Delivering files via the internet is almost free; inventing a product and building a factory costs millions.) Uniqueness of Offer. How unique is your offer versus competing offerings in the market, and how easy is it for potential competitors to copy you? (There are many hair salons but very few companies that offer private space travel.) Speed to Market. How soon can you create something to sell? (You can offer to mow a neighbor’s lawn in minutes; opening a bank can take years.) Up-front Investment. How much will you have to invest before you’re ready to sell? (To be a housekeeper, all you need is a set of inexpensive cleaning products. To mine for gold, you need millions to purchase land and excavating equipment.) Upsell Potential. Are there related secondary offers that you could also present to purchasing customers? (Customers who purchase razors need shaving cream and extra blades as well; buy a Frisbee and you won’t need another unless you lose it.) Evergreen Potential. Once the initial offer has been created, how much additional work will you have to put in in order to continue selling? (Business consulting requires ongoing work to get paid; a book can be produced once and then sold over and over as is.) When you’re done with your assessment, add up the score. If the score is 50 or below, move on to another idea—there are better places to invest your energy and resources. If the score is 75 or above, you have a very promising idea—full speed ahead. Anything between 50 and 75 has the potential to pay the bills but won’t be a home run without a huge investment of energy and resources.
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Josh Kaufman (The Personal MBA)
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know what Clement said about being pope?” I shook my head, as he’d hoped I would. “Clement said none of his predecessors knew how to be pope.” “What did he mean?” “He meant that none of the others knew how to throw such big parties. He was also called ‘Clement the Magnificent.’ When he was crowned as pope, he gave a feast for three thousand people. He served one thousand sheep, nine hundred goats, a hundred cows, a hundred calves, and sixty pigs.” “Goodness. That’s, what, ten, twenty pounds of meat for every person?” “Ah, but there is more. Much more. Ten thousand chickens. Fourteen hundred geese. Three hundred fish—” “Only three hundred?” He stretched his arms wide—“Pike, very big fish”—then transformed the gesture into a shrug. “But also, Catholics eat a lot of fish, so maybe it was not considered a delicacy.” He held up a finger. “Plus fifty thousand cheeses. And for dessert? Fifty thousand tarts.” “That’s not possible. Surely somebody exaggerated.” “Non, non, pas du tout. We have the book of accounts. It records what they bought, and how much it cost.” “How much did it cost?” “More than I will earn in my entire life. But it was a smart investment. It made him a favorite with the people who mattered—kings and queens and dukes. And, of course, with his cardinals and bishops, who sent him money they collected in their churches.” Turning away from the palace, he pointed to a building on the opposite side of the square. “Do you know this building?” I shook my head. “It’s just as important as the palace.” “What is it?” “The papal mint.” “Mint, as in money?” He nodded. “The popes coined their own money, and they built this mint here. They made gold florins in the mint, then stored them in the treasury in the palace.” “The popes had their own mint? That seems ironic, since Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem.” “If you look for inconsistencies, you will find a million. The popes had armies. They had mistresses. They had children. They poisoned their rivals. They lived like kings and emperors; better than kings and emperors.” “And nobody objected?” “Oh, sure,” he said. “Some of the Franciscans—founded by Saint Francis of Assisi—they were very critical. They said monks and priests and popes should live in poverty, like Jesus.
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Jefferson Bass (The Inquisitor's Key)
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The rise of the Rockefeller family was made possible from two angles by the Rothschilds. One was by the large subsidies placed on transports of Rockefeller oil. The documents of the American trade register prove that the Rothschilds, since 1896, have owned ninety-six percent of the American railways. This made it possible to transport oil on rail. When John D. Rockefeller wanted to expand, he received the financial support he needed to do so from the Rothschilds through their National City Bank of Cleveland. In exchange, the Rockefellers had to transport their oil via the Rothschilds railways. An illegal agreement saw to it that the Rockefellers received a bonus for the amount of oil they transported by train. Because of this agreement nobody could compete with the Rothschilds in transporting Rockefeller oil. This was all arranged by Jacob Schiff, of the company Kuhn & Loeb, the brain behind the foundation of the Rockefeller imperium. Under the authority of the Rothchilds, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. continue to manage the Rockefeller capital, which is valued at over 400 billion dollars. In 1950 the New York Times reported L.L. Strauss, a partner with Kuhn, Loeb & Co., as the financial adviser to the Rockefeller estate. Because of this, every investment had to be approved and signed by a partner of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. According to the periodical Fortune in 1985, the wealth of the Rockefellers was spread amongst more than 200 companies. These companies include six of the largest industrial companies in America, six of the largest banks, five of the largest insurance companies and three of the largest companies from different branches (electricity, water, infrastructure, fruits, oil, gold, and others). Not including the remaining 180 other companies, the total assets of these twenty giants amount to 460 billion dollars.
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Robin de Ruiter (Worldwide Evil and Misery - The Legacy of the 13 Satanic Bloodlines)
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Civil war tends to give a helping hand to the velocity of currency, Ukraine can attest to that. However, it is quite an unpleasant way to find the intrinsic value of worthlessness.
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Tom Wallace
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Although banking was then still in its rudimentary state, Nathan fully understood the interplay between finance and economics, the effects of political news on the stock exchange, the quickest way to bull or bear a market, and how gold reserves affected the exchange rate.
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Kenneth L. Fisher (100 Minds That Made the Market (Fisher Investments Press Book 23))
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Quick-thinking Nathan eventually bought the prince his consols, but he first used the money to successfully speculate in gold bullion, making a killing and a reputation for himself in the London exchange.
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Kenneth L. Fisher (100 Minds That Made the Market (Fisher Investments Press Book 23))
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Recruit raw people, invest in them. Not all will turn out to be gold or diamonds, but over time, you will have a handful. And they will be your biggest assets.
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Rashmi Bansal (Stay Hungry Stay Foolish)
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Tom King, the chief operating officer of U.S. Soccer, said that the federation invested $4.4 million on the women's team in 1999 and lost $2.7 million. The federation receives about $3 million from FIFA, soccer's world governing body, for qualifying for the men's World Cup, and $700,000 to $1 million per game, American officials said. The federation receives no money from FIFA for qualifying for the Women's World Cup. The men's team also receives guarantees from other countries when it travels of up to $140,000, King said, compared with zero for the women.
'I don't see the WNBA players asking for the same salaries as the NBA players,' Contiguglia said.
In the case of soccer, however, the women are the NBA.
It is the women's team that is more popular and higher achieving. And to suggest the men's team is a cash cow is incorrect. The men's team didn't pay for itself either in 1999, King said, losing $700,000 on a budget of $5.9 million. An argument could be made that the American women deserve more money than the men, not just equal pay. They have won two world championships and an Olympic gold medal, while the men have won nothing. The biggest men's home crowds often come at matches where the ethnic population is cheering for the other team.
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Jere Longman (The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World)
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Data matters. It’s the very essence of what we care about. Personal data is not equivalent to a real person—it’s much better. It takes no space, costs almost nothing to maintain, lasts forever, and is far easier to replicate and transport. Data is worth more than its weight in gold—certainly so, since data weighs nothing; it has no mass. Data about a person is not as valuable as the person, but since the data is so much cheaper to manage, it’s a far better investment. Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, points out that a user’s data can be purchased for about half a cent, but the average user’s value to the Internet advertising ecosystem is estimated at $1,200 per year. Data’s value—its power, its meaning—is the very thing that also makes it sensitive. The more data, the more power. The more powerful the data, the more sensitive. So the tension we’re feeling is unavoidable.
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Eric Siegel (Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die)
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The masses long ago switched from stocks to investments having higher yields and more protection from inflation. Now the pension funds - the market’s last hope - have won permission to quit stocks and bonds for real estate, futures, gold, and even diamonds. The death of equities looks like an almost permanent condition.5
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Niall Ferguson (The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition)
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I. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family. II. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field. III. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling. IV. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. V. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon (Original Classic Edition))
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THE FIVE LAWS OF GOLD I. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family. II. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field. III. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling. IV. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. V. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon (Original Classic Edition))
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And the reason people get screwed is that by the time they hear that the stock market (or gold, or the real estate market, or commodities, or any other type of investment) is a great place to go, very often the bubble is just about to end. So you need to put in place a system to make sure you don’t get seduced into putting too much of your money in any one market or asset class or too much in your Risk/Growth Bucket.
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Anthony Robbins (MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom (Tony Robbins Financial Freedom))
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Any investment that has become a topic of widespread conversation is likely to be hazardous to your wealth. It was true of gold in the early 1980s and Japanese real estate and stocks in the late 1980s. It was true of Internet-related stocks in the late 1990s and condominiums in California, Nevada, and Florida in the first decade of the 2000s, as well as bitcoin in 2017.
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Burton G. Malkiel (A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing)
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As the head of International Match, Ivar debited that amount from the company’s cash and replaced it with a credit to Continental Investment Corporation in the same amount. Suddenly, International Match’s primary asset was an IOU from Continental instead of cash. Then, without the Americans seeming to care or even notice, Ivar wired $12,244,792 – all of the remaining proceeds from the International Match gold debenture issue, one of the largest American securities issues in years – to Continental’s account in Vaduz. Ivar was no Charles Ponzi. He wasn’t going to abscond with the money. He just wanted the flexibility to use the funds as he pleased, and to buy time if things didn’t go as planned. In a bad year, he could fudge the numbers and pay dividends out of Continental’s assets. In a good year, he could understate earnings and save for a rainy day by hiding the extra income at Continental.
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Frank Partnoy (The Match King: Ivar Kreuger and the Financial Scandal of the Century)
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Real Estate Investors invest in real estate primarily because they believe it is a real investment that they can control. You can see it, visit it, touch it, smell it, and show it off to friends and family. You can't do that with stock. You might be able to do it with gold and silver.
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Mike Butler (Landlording on AutoPilot: A Simple, No-Brainer System for Higher Profits, Less Work and More Fun (Do It All from Your Smartphone or Tablet!))
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Why the correlation between popular interest and subsequent low returns? Simple: Driving the price of any asset higher requires the entry of new buyers, and when everyone is invested in stocks, real estate, or gold, there’s no one left to join the party; the entry of naïve, inexperienced investors usually signals the end.
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William J. Bernstein (If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly)
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Gold, paintings, or bitcoin are all examples of buying a bigger-idiot type of asset. You can be lucky and find a bigger idiot most of the time, but if you consistently play the same game, once in a while you will be the biggest idiot. You will find yourself holding
the bag all the way down to market bottoms.
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Naved Abdali
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An ounce of gold will always be an ounce of gold regardless of the length of possession. The short-term value will go up or down, but gold prices will follow the general inflation rate in the long run.
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Naved Abdali
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The West Australian Football Commission (WAFC) got a second team but was not prepared to invest in that team because any investment would drain funds from other parts of the WA football system. The AFL also firmly wanted a second club in Perth to continue its growth as a truly national competition, but after seeing the Eagles play in three and win two of the five Grand Finals between 1990 and 1994, rival clubs were loathe to allow recruiting concessions that might create a second western juggernaut.
Hence, the Dockers were not well resourced and light on for talent, left to fend for themselves and somehow expected to make money from day one. By the time the AFL established new clubs on the Gold Coast and in western Sydney nearly 20 years later, they had learned from previous mistakes and invested in those clubs to give them the best chance of success. The support and concessions those clubs received were phenomenal compared to Fremantle’s.
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Matthew Pavlich (Purple Heart)
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Making mistakes is part of the learning process when it comes to trading or investing. Every trader makes mistakes in trading that ruin his entire capital. We have listed some common but 5 deadly trading mistakes that a novice or unprofessional trader does in the commodity market: No Patience, Over Trading, Trading Without Plan, Giving Into Emotions, Not Having A Trading Journal. You may include market conditions, the size of the trade, expiration time, prices, whether or not you were successful, and even notes on your emotions. Looking Forward and Join Free MCX Crude Oil Tips, MCX Commodity Trading Trial! Call at 9814289955 or go through our website.
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MCX Bazaar
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Bitcoin is up 60% on the year while the almighty GOLD is down by 11%, and yet still hate investing in BTC for the long run? Math doesn't lie, the media does!
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Olawale Daniel
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Instead, vaccines would have to endure the years-long delays that have always accompanied methodical safety and efficacy testing, and that would mean less profits, more uncertainty, longer runways to market, and a disappointing end to the lucrative COVID-19 vaccine gold rush. Dr. Fauci has invested $6 billion in taxpayer lucre in the Moderna vaccine alone.3 His agency is co-owner4 of the patent and stands to collect a fortune in royalties. At least four of Fauci’s hand-picked deputies are in line to collect royalties of $150,000/year based on Moderna’s success, and that’s on top of the salaries already paid by the American public.5,6
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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Paper money cheats, the real value lies in owning gold.
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Mwanandeke Kindembo
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If you want to invest, go for gold. Turn all the cash into gold, that's the only way out.
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Mwanandeke Kindembo
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Yes, breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you're young - after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That's true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle - in everything.
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Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
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Health gives satisfaction, but not so much with pleasure in the sense of indulging oneself.
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Mwanandeke Kindembo
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Nothing is more beautiful than an investment. Earn money while you sleep. At the same time, you should be prepared to deal with any loss or risk that may arise along the way.
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Mwanandeke Kindembo
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From the outset, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and other therapeutics posed an existential threat to Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates’ $48 billion COVID vaccine project, and particularly to their vanity drug remdesivir, in which Gates has a large stake.1 Under federal law, new vaccines and medicines cannot quality for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) if any existing FDA-approved drug proves effective against the same malady: For FDA to issue an EUA (emergency use authorization), there must be no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the candidate product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating the disease or condition. . . .2 Thus, if any FDA-approved drug like hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin) proved effective against COVID, pharmaceutical companies would no longer be legally allowed to fast-track their billion-dollar vaccines to market under Emergency Use Authorization. Instead, vaccines would have to endure the years-long delays that have always accompanied methodical safety and efficacy testing, and that would mean less profits, more uncertainty, longer runways to market, and a disappointing end to the lucrative COVID-19 vaccine gold rush. Dr. Fauci has invested $6 billion in taxpayer lucre in the Moderna vaccine alone.3 His agency is co-owner4 of the patent and stands to collect a fortune in royalties. At least four of Fauci’s hand-picked deputies are in line to collect royalties of $150,000/year based on Moderna’s success, and that’s on top of the salaries already paid by the American public.5,6
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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Under federal law, new vaccines and medicines cannot quality for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) if any existing FDA-approved drug proves effective against the same malady: For FDA to issue an EUA (emergency use authorization), there must be no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the candidate product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating the disease or condition. . . .2 Thus, if any FDA-approved drug like hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin) proved effective against COVID, pharmaceutical companies would no longer be legally allowed to fast-track their billion-dollar vaccines to market under Emergency Use Authorization. Instead, vaccines would have to endure the years-long delays that have always accompanied methodical safety and efficacy testing, and that would mean less profits, more uncertainty, longer runways to market, and a disappointing end to the lucrative COVID-19 vaccine gold rush. Dr. Fauci has invested $6 billion in taxpayer lucre in the Moderna vaccine alone.3 His agency is co-owner4 of the patent and stands to collect a fortune in royalties. At least four of Fauci’s hand-picked deputies are in line to collect royalties of $150,000/year based on Moderna’s success, and that’s on top of the salaries already paid by the American public.5
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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The Five Laws of Gold 1. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family. 2. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field. 3. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling. 4. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. 5. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon)
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think I would spend it. I would invest it in projects to create economic equality for women all over the world. Women are the key. Many of our projects have convinced us this is true, and it’s been a known fact for my colleagues at the World Bank. Everywhere where women are educated and are free enough to decide what happens in their own lives the birthrates drop to an acceptable level. Everywhere women own property instead of being property themselves, the standard of living rises to a level where people can afford to consider environmental issues. In many aid programs, it’s the women who receive the money too, because they improve things with it, while the men only get drunk or buy gold watches.
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Andreas Eschbach (One Trillion Dollars: An absolutely gripping page turning thriller about a man who inherits a life-changing fortune)
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Commitment gives you freedom because you're no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous, it hones your attention and focus, directing them toward what is most efficient at making you healthy and happy. Commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more, more, more again? Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would. In this way, rejection of alternatives liberates us - rejection of what does not align with our most important values, with our chosen metrics, rejection of the constant pursuit of breadth without depth.
Breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you're young - after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That's true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle - in everything.
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Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
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the rejection of alternatives liberates us—rejection of what does not align with our most important values, with our chosen metrics, rejection of the constant pursuit of breadth without depth. Yes, breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you’re young—after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up.
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Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
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we need simply look at how capitalism changed after the idea of shareholder supremacy took over—which only happened in the final decades of the twentieth century. Prior to the introduction of the shareholder primacy theory, the way business operated in the United States looked quite different. “By the middle of the 20th century,” said Cornell corporate law professor Lynn Stout in the documentary series Explained, “the American public corporation was proving itself one of the most effective and powerful and beneficial organizations in the world.” Companies of that era allowed for average Americans, not just the wealthiest, to share in the investment opportunities and enjoy good returns. Most important, “executives and directors viewed themselves as stewards or trustees of great public institutions that were supposed to serve not just the shareholders, but also bondholders, suppliers, employees and the community.” It was only after Friedman’s 1970 article that executives and directors started to see themselves as responsible to their “owners,” the shareholders, and not stewards of something bigger. The more that idea took hold in the 1980s and ’90s, the more incentive structures inside public companies and banks themselves became excessively focused on shorter-and-shorter-term gains to the benefit of fewer and fewer people. It’s during this time that the annual round of mass layoffs to meet arbitrary projections became an accepted and common strategy for the first time. Prior to the 1980s, such a practice simply didn’t exist. It was common for people to work a practical lifetime for one company. The company took care of them and they took care of the company. Trust, pride and loyalty flowed in both directions. And at the end of their careers these long-time employees would get their proverbial gold watch. I don’t think getting a gold watch is even a thing anymore. These days, we either leave or are asked to leave long before we would ever earn one.
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Simon Sinek (The Infinite Game)
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Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man In Babylon with Study Guide: Deluxe Special Edition)
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The success, growth and integrity of the company (and thus your investment) is tied inextricably to the personality, abilities and ambitions of the chairman and/or chief executive. If he owns a flashy BMW with personalised number plates, drips with gold jewellery and has ambitions to own the local football club - bad news. But a conservative car, gentleman's shoes, love for cricket, faded regimental tie and membership of the local school board spell good news. I exclude from all this the 30-year old, multi-millionaire, whiz-kid creators of IT companies on price/earnings ratio of 50-plus. These live on a different planet from me, anyway, so normal judgements and personality tests do not apply.
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John Lee (How to Make a Million – Slowly: Guiding Principles from a Lifetime of Investing (Financial Times Series))
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Trick #1 for Farming Humans is the ability to invisibly commit crime. Chapter 1, Page 9, Ring of Gyges Trick #2 for Farming Humans is to allow professionals to create rigged systems or self serving social constructs. Chapter 4, page 28 (Lawyers who serve corporate interests are often incentivized to assist in harming the society to increase their own security. SEC, Bernie Madoff, Corporations as invisible friends, Money laundering assistance) Trick #3 in Farming Humans is making it legal for insider manipulation of public markets for private gain. (Boeing CEO) page 32 Trick #4 for Farming Humans is Justice prefers to look only down…rarely up towards power. Chapter 5, page 33. Trick #5 for Farming Humans is “let us create the nation’s money”. What could go wrong? Found in Chapter 7 on page 38. Trick # 6 in the game of Farming Humans, to create something which gives a few men an elevated status above the rest. Southern Pacific Railroad taxes, to Pacific Gas and Electric deadly California fires, to Boeing aircraft casualties. Paper “persons” cannot be arrested or jailed. Trick #7 for Farming Humans is a private game of money creation which secretly “borrowed” on the credit backing of the public. Chapter 9, page 51. Federal Reserve. Trick #8 for Farming Humans is seen in the removal of the gold backing of US dollars for global trading partners, a second default of the promises behind the dollar. (1971) Chapter 15, page 81 Trick #9 for Farming Humans is being able to sell out the public trust, over and over again. Supreme Court rules that money equals speech. Chapter 16, page 91. Trick #10 for Farming Humans is Clinton repeals Glass Steagall, letting banks gamble America into yet another financial collapse. Chapter 17, page 93. Trick #11 for Farming Humans is when money is allowed to buy politics. Citizens United, super PAC’s can spend unlimited money during campaigns. Chapter 18, page 97. Trick #12 for Farming Humans is the Derivative Revolution. Making it up with lawyers and papers in a continual game of “lets pretend”. Chapter 19, page 105. Trick #13 for Farming Humans is allowing dis-information to infect society. Chapter 20, page 109. Trick #14 for Farming Humans is substitution of an “advisor”, for what investors think is an “adviser”. Confused yet? The clever “vowel movement” adds billions in profits, while farming investors. Trick #15 for Farming Humans is when privately-hired rental-cops are allowed to lawfully regulate an industry, the public gets abused. Investments, SEC, FDA, FAA etc. Chapter 15, page 122 Trick #16 for Farming Humans is the layer of industry “self regulators”, your second army of people paid to “gaslight” the public into thinking they are protected.
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Larry Elford (Farming Humans: Easy Money (Non Fiction Financial Murder Book 1))
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Africa, I believe, is embarking upon an era of sharp divergences in which China will play a huge role in specific national outcomes—for better and for worse, perhaps even dramatically, depending on the country. Places endowed with stable governments, with elites that are accountable and responsive to the needs of their fellow citizens, and with relatively healthy institutions, will put themselves in a position to thrive on the strength of robust Chinese demand for their exports and fast-growing investment from China and from a range of other emerging economic powers, including Brazil, Turkey, India, and Vietnam. Inevitably, most of these African countries will be democracies. Other nations, whether venal dictatorships, states rendered dysfunctional by war, and even some fragile democracies—places where institutions remain too weak or corrupted—will sell off their mineral resources to China and other bidders, and squander what is in effect a one-time chance to convert underground riches into aboveground wealth by investing in their own citizens and creating new kinds of economic activity beyond today’s simple extraction. The proposition at work here couldn’t be more straightforward. The timeline for resource depletion in many African countries is running in tandem with the timeline for the continent’s unprecedented demographic explosion. At current rates, in the next forty years, most African states will have twice the number of people they count now. By that same time, their presently known reserves of minerals like iron, bauxite, copper, cobalt, uranium, gold, and more, will be largely depleted. Those who have diversified their economies and invested in their citizens, particularly in education and health, will have a shot at prosperity. Those that haven’t, stand to become hellish places, barely viable, if viable at all.
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Howard W. French (China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa)
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Imperial domination spread. Slaves were the precious life-blood of the West Indian economy, where King Sugar reigned and in which £70 million had been invested by 1790. Under the asiento, British slave-traders transported a million and a half Africans to the Caribbean during the century: ‘All this great increase in our treasure,’ wrote Joshua Gee in 1729, ‘proceeds chiefly from the labour of negroes in the plantations.’ West African gold gave England the guinea. In 1787, Sierra Leone in West Africa was set up as a trial settlement of free blacks, as was New South Wales from 1788 for transported criminal whites. The future of English society was irreversibly being skewed by empire.
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Roy Porter (English Society in the Eighteenth Century (The Penguin Social History of Britain))
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The gold in Michelangelo’s strongbox represented only a fraction – considerably less than half – of his total assets, most of which were invested in property. He was not only the most famous painter or sculptor in history, he was probably richer than any artist who had ever been. This was just one of many contradictions in Michelangelo’s nature: a wealthy man who lived frugally; a skinflint who could be extraordinarily, embarrassingly generous; a private, enigmatic individual who spent three quarters of a century near the heart of power.
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Martin Gayford (Michelangelo: His Epic Life)
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Irene couldn’t help stopping to admire its shimmering gold pattern, which depicted a beautiful tree with birds and stylized animals, surrounded by a climbing plant like a grapevine against a dark-blue background. She could feel von Knecht looking at her. “That’s a semi-antique Motashemi-Keshan,” he said knowledgeably. She had a fleeting vision of her latest investment on the rug front, a rusty red rug with small primitive stick figures in the corners. The salesperson at IKEA had assured her that it was a genuine, hand-tied Gabbeh, for the reasonable price of only two thousand kronor. She loved her rug and thought that it lit up the whole living room from its place beneath the coffee table. Suddenly she had the equally fierce and foolish impulse to defend her rug. With more vehemence
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Helene Tursten (Detective Inspector Huss)
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Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.
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George S. Clason (The Richest Man in Babylon: George S. Clason International Bestseller Book ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ for How to Grow Rich)
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Now, President Bush was essentially admitting that money—the thing the government had promised to keep safe—had jumped the fence. The dollars people had invested in money-market funds were no longer investments that people might or might not get back. They were now money, guaranteed by the United States, just like money in the bank or a gold coin in a locked box guarded by a soldier with a gun.
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Jacob Goldstein (Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing)
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The near-complete failure of gold to protect against a loss in the purchasing power of the dollar must cast grave doubt on the ability of the ordinary investor to protect himself against inflation by putting his money in “things.”* Quite a few categories of valuable objects have had striking advances in market value over the years—such as diamonds, paintings by masters, first editions of books, rare stamps and coins, etc. But in many, perhaps most, of these cases there seems to be an element of the artificial or the precarious or even the unreal about the quoted prices. Somehow it is hard to think of paying $67,500 for a U.S. silver dollar dated 1804 (but not even minted that year) as an “investment operation.”4 We acknowledge we are out of our depth in this area. Very few of our readers will find the swimming safe and easy there.
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Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor)
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The world over, children are being nurtured and raised with dreams and aspirations to secure gold medals and accolades in every field, be it sports, studies, arts, creativity, innovations, ideas, and thinking, most parents in India began saving for their daughter’s marriage since the birth of the girl child. Marriage, is perhaps, seen as the ultimate destiny for a woman and is prioritized over her career, her abilities, her aspirations, and her dreams. Collecting and preserving gold, or expensive items for the dowry is preferred over investing the money in education, a career, or making her self-dependent.
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Shalu Nigam
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What is negated is the rhetoric regarding obsession for gold as the dowry is that the parents have a choice to express their care and love for their daughter in a different form where they invest the resources in her education and training to help her acquire skills, nurture her talents, develop her aptitude, build her capacities, and make her independent from the very beginning of her life, so that in case of any emergency, she may face challenges to survive and flourish in any circumstances. Preparing her to get gold medals and accolades in any skill, may be prioritized rather than giving gold at the time of marriage.
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Shalu Nigam
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A Treatise on Money, published in 1930, is an excellent example of Keynes’s passion for generalization. In essence, Keynes built an exceedingly complicated conceptual apparatus to show how an economy on the gold standard could, under certain conditions, fall into a low-employment trap. If the monetary authority was prevented from lowering the long-term interest rate to a level consonant with investors’ expectations, and if domestic costs of production prevented the achievement of an export surplus equal to what people wished to lend abroad, the result would be an ‘excess’ of saving over investment, a sagging price level, and a ‘jammed’ economy. This was Britain’s fate in the 1920s.
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Robert Skidelsky (Keynes: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
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Nepalese culture is traditional because most individuals prefer to spend their money on land, gold and silver savings, building structures, and consuming luxury products rather than investing in new ventures or starting their businesses.
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Santosh Kalwar (Why Nepal Fails)
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If any FDA-approved drug like hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin) proved effective against COVID, pharmaceutical companies would no longer be legally allowed to fast-track their billion-dollar vaccines to market under Emergency Use Authorization. Instead, vaccines would have to endure the years-long delays that have always accompanied methodical safety and efficacy testing, and that would mean less profits, more uncertainty, longer runways to market, and a disappointing end to the lucrative COVID-19 vaccine gold rush. Dr. Fauci has invested $6 billion in taxpayer lucre in the Moderna vaccine alone. His agency is co-owner of the patent and stands to collect a fortune in royalties. At least four of Fauci’s hand-picked deputies are in line to collect royalties of $150,000/year based on Moderna’s success, and that’s on top of the salaries already paid by the American public.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children’s Health Defense))
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Yet other men came with the idea of setting up links between the East and the West. In 1850 Henry Wells and his partner, William Fargo, were operating American Express, an express company in the burgeoning city of Buffalo. An express company’s business was to ship things quickly but expensively. Messages, banknotes, and valuables were the primary goods transported by express companies. To hedge against the risks to his express company from the instant telegraph, Wells had invested in local telegraph companies, including Ezra Cornell’s. Sensing the opportunity in the West, especially as laying telegraph lines across a desolate country was a practical impossibility, Wells and Fargo proposed expanding their company, American Express, to the West. Their investors balked. So starting in 1852, Wells and Fargo set up a new company to provide express services to California. In addition to simple messages, Wells, Fargo & Co. ventured into the business of bringing gold back east. And since an express company was already entrusted with valuables, it soon made sense for Wells, Fargo & Co. to also offer banking services locally.
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Bhu Srinivasan (Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism)
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In the United States, the country was basically started as an investment. The settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, arrived in 1607 because their financial backers in England expected the settlement would ultimately return multiples of the sums that were invested to get the settlers there. That turned out not to be a great investment for the initial backers. In the past half century, the gold standard as an investor, and thus as a predictor of the future, has been Warren Buffett.
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David M. Rubenstein (How to Invest: Masters on the Craft)
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Narrative economics demonstrates how popular stories change through time to affect economic outcomes, including not only recessions and depressions, but also other important economic phenomena. The idea that house prices can only go up attaches to the stories of rich house flippers seen on television. The idea that gold is the safest investment attaches to stories of war and depression. These narratives have a contagious element, even if their attachment to any given celebrity is tenuous.
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Robert J. Shiller (Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events)
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My wife has a sweet tooth but is also very health conscious. Over more than two decades, she has followed a simple yet powerful way of avoiding the enticement of desserts. Our fridge just doesn’t have any. In my view, the best way to avoid investing in bad businesses is to ignore them and their stock prices. We never discuss what we consider bad companies or industries in our team meetings. Never. It doesn’t matter if an airline has declared spectacular results recently or if every analyst recommends buying airline shares. We are indifferent to a public sector bank that has hired a new CEO from the private sector and has pushed its stock price to an all-time high. We ignore an infrastructure business that has been awarded a new multibillion-dollar contract and a gold loan business that has announced 30 percent ROE in its latest quarterly result and is touted by the bulls to be the next billion-dollar opportunity. No one on our team is allowed to utter the famous last words of many investors: “This time, it’s different.” If we never discuss a business, how will we ever buy it? No sweets in the fridge: no snacking possible.
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Pulak Prasad (What I Learned About Investing from Darwin)