The Third Pig

 

Dear friend,

On September 26th, CrossFitters across the nation will unite for the fourth consecutive year to honor and support our injured service men and women and the thousands of people fighting and living with prostate cancer: Fight Gone Bad IV. One day. One workout. One Purpose.

Fight Gone Bad IV benefits Athletes for a Cure and the Wounded Warrior Project. There's no stopping us from making a difference and I hope you will support our efforts with any contribution you see fit. Last year we raised $627,000. This year, we are going for $1million. This goal will be reached one dollar at a time, in amounts ranging from $1 to $1000.

Please take a moment to give what you can to this important event. Click on the link below to connect to my personal fundraising page. http://tinyurl.com/bensfgb

I would also like to invite you join our Facebook community and come meet all of the participants who are taking part and supporting Fight Gone Bad IV. You can join us here: http://fgb4fans.org

Thank you for your support. One Fight at a Time.

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 09:24 AM |
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Source: Tao of Talani

I would like to make you aware of a great new blog I think will be of interest to many of you who read The Third Pig. It is the Tao of Talani. In the About section of the blog you'll find Talani's story. He writes:

How does a skinny New York City kid grow up to rub elbows with Will Smith, Magic Johnson, Denzel Washington, CEO's, Politicians and other prominent figures? Simply, never define anything as IMPOSSIBLE. I didn't mention high profile names to impress but to impress upon you that anyone can create there reality.

He goes on to tell us his purpose for the blog:

In The TAO OF TALANI blog I share my experiences as a humble student, emphasizing there is no wrong or right way to achieve your goals. The blog is specifically designed for self-empowerment, entrepreneurs and lifehackers seeking to create a productive new reality. My objective is to be an asset to the collective by sharing knowledge from leading thinkers and doers.

Tuesday I contributing a post to the Tao of Talani titled, "You Ought To Be Rich". The post provides 10 simple but admittedly not easy steps to follow toward wealth. Please visit the blog and leave a comment there, or here, and let me know what you think.

Disclosure: none

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 08:57 AM |
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Every now and again we are presented with a choice to buy a new something or buy into a new idea. Often times these decisions are not the easiest to make. Do I buy the silver coupe or the red convertible? Sometimes the decisions are slightly easier. Do I accept the job working long hours for minimum wage or accept the million dollar inheritance from Uncle Ralph?

We at Brick Financial are often faced with the decision to add new positions to our clients’ portfolios. But our decision of whether to buy or not is often made easier by utilizing a simple technique. We simply compare the new position under consideration to what we already own. If we find after this comparison, that the new investment does not make our clients better off, we pass. This mental exercise saves of tons of time and effort. It eliminates 99% of the investments in the marketplace. Most just will not be up to snuff.

The beauty of this technique is that it can be applied to every day life. In managing your “life portfolio” you simply compare the new thing to what you already have in your possession. If you have children in a good school it might not be worth taking them out of the school they’re in unless the new school you’re considering produces Rhodes Scholars left and right. If you’re married, it’s probably not worth the headache and expense of divorce for a short-lived affair with the new office hottie. Well, maybe if it’s Angelina Jolie. Even then it’d be a close call.

The point is, your decisions become substantially easier to make if you are thinking about how they will improve your life. If it’s close, why bother. Your time is better spent relaxing with a Mai Tai than worrying about all the choices and decisions you need to make in life. Life is too short. Enjoy it.

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 03:41 PM |
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A few years ago the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy conducted a study examining trends on wealth and wealth transfer within the African-American community. What CWP found was not astonishing – African-Americans are generous with their money. This finding in right in line with a 2003 study reported in the Chronicle of Philanthropy that African Americans typically donate up to 25% more of their discretionary income than do whites.

CWP turned up some other some other not-so-surprising but all-to-disappointing statistics as well – African Americans have less money to go around than other racial groups. According to the study (2001 figures), African Americans made up 13.2 million U.S. households, about 12.4% of all households. Yet they only earned 7.1% of aggregate household income and only owned 2.5% of household wealth.

It’s a little self defeating to give more when you have less to give. Altruism has its place. But so does rational selfishness. I am not saying one should not be generous. What I’m saying is charity should start at home. Most millionaires agree. I am in wholehearted agreement with Warren Buffett who said:

“…I always had the idea that philanthropy was important today, but would be equally important in one year, ten years, 20 years, and the future generally. And someone who was compounding money at a high rate, I thought, was the better party to be taking care of the philanthropy that was to be done 20 years out, while the people compounding at a lower rate should logically take care of the current philanthropy.”

The African American community should take note. Invest for the long term in the stock market, accumulate wealth and then give it away. There’ll be more of it to give in the end.

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 05:29 PM |
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A popular story passed on about Mahatma Gandhi goes something like this: A woman brought her son to see Gandhi because he was eating too much sugar. And despite her vigilance, the boy could not seem to give up eating sugar, even though it was bad for him. And so the woman asked Gandhi if he would speak with the boy about his problem. Gandhi replied, “No, but bring him back in a week.” And so in a week the woman returned and once again petitioned Gandhi to speak with her son about his rather bad habit of eating too much sugar. Gandhi welcomed the boy and had a discussion with him about giving up sugar. The boy seemed affected by Gandhi’s advice and the woman thanked him deeply. As she turned to leave she asked him one final question, “Why did you see him today and not last week?” And Gandhi replied, “Because last week I was eating sugar.”

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 02:14 PM |
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"Charlie [Munger] and I have absolutely no complaints about these taxes. We work in a market-based economy that rewards our efforts far more bountifully than it does the efforts of other whose output is of equal or greater benefit to society. Taxation should, and does, partially redress this inequity. But we remain extraordinarily well treated."

- Warren E. Buffett

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 11:37 AM |
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[Fortune] Even so, you and Susie (Buffett) set up the Buffett Foundation way back in the 1960s, which means you obviously expected to be giving away money sometime. What was your thinking back then?

[Warren E. Buffett] Well, when we got married in 1952, I told Susie I was going to be rich. That wasn't going to be because of any special virtues of mine or even because of hard work, but simply because I was born with the right skills in the right place at the right time.

I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that.

In any case, Susie didn't get very excited when I told her we were going to get rich. She either didn't care or didn't believe me - probably both, in fact. But to the extent we did amass wealth, we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society.

In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced. And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.

Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.

In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.

Read the entire article by clicking here.

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Posted by Benjamin Taylor at 12:03 PM |
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