#and have been living in a failing economy since I was fourteen

[piracytheorist]

Once I get a job that pays well enough for me to actually buy the stuff I want and also move into a less toxic environment and grow some self-esteem it’s over for you bitches

[awed-frog]

If I may ask, what do you think of the whole sea watch 3 mess? And indeed of the whole migrant situation in Italy?

Well - I have messy thoughts about that. Mostly I’m angry, disgusted, worried and pretty hopeless about the whole thing.

As a recap for people who haven’t been following this (complicated stuff ahead, so I don’t claim to be right about everything): 

1) In 1990, the EU decided on how to deal with migrants by drafting the Dublin Regulation, which came into effect in 1997. The idea was charmingly simple: people seeking refuge in Europe should ask for asylum in the first European country they got to. Optimists claim it was difficult back then to imagine any complications, since immigration was very low and European countries still had borders and everything else, but in hindsight, you have to wonder why countries like Italy agreed to this at all. You obviously can’t get to Germany or the UK without crossing through Italy or Spain first, so the Dublin Regulation was bound to cause huge problems. The other ridiculous thing is that the Italian government that signed this was headed by Andreotti, a nearly immortal ghoul princeling who’d been in politics since the 1750s and had been implicated in at least two murders.

(He’d also been found guilty of collaboration with the mafia, but was let go on a technical detail.)

2) In 2011, Muammar Gaddafi, ‘Brotherly Leader’ of Libya, was killed. We still don’t know exactly what went down - more on that in a second - but a general problem the West has in the Middle East and Africa is that we tend to support dictatorts, no matter how brutal, because it’s just easier to do business and get our way with one greedy and corrupt person than it is to deal with an entire Parliament, but the risk we overlook, time and time again, is that all-powerful dictators tend to become more and more ambitious and form their own plans, which may or may not align with Western interests. In the case of Gaddafi, Hilary’s emails (I know, I know) seem to indicate the real reason the West - and particularly France, as in former President Nicholas ‘I’m the son of an immigrant but he was the right kind of immigrant’ Sarkozy - suddenly got annoyed with Gaddafi is that Gaddafi was planning to introduce a new banking system in Africa - a thing that would rival the CFA franc. 

(That’s a currency used in fourteen African countries which is basically a leftover from French colonialism - it’s managed directly from the French Treasury, and that gives France more or less full control of those countries’ economies). 

So anyway, NATO got all tough on Libya, Gaddafi was killed, and as a result Libya is now a failed state with - if that’s possible - more human rights violations than before - particularly relevant for your question is a very harsh treatment of black Africans (down to and including literal ‘slave markets’ where people are bought and sold, also torture camps and everything in between). This happens partly because it’s lucrative af, and partly because there’s been bad blood between ethnic Arabs and black Africans for generations.

So, aynway, that’s the general context. What happened next is what we’ve seen for the last few years - an increase in the number of immigrants coming to Europe, therefore an increase of the number of deaths in the Mediterranean, therefore widespread panic leading to 

immoral and unethical deals with people like Erdogan (I say ‘people’, lol)

a sharp rise of the extreme right and 

a general inability to welcome those desperate enough to come here and offer them a decent life.

Most recently, Italy’s far-right Interior Minister decided to close down the harbours to prevent NGOs-operated rescue ships from docking. The Sea-Watch 3, which was carrying 42 migrants, decided to ignore this and go to Lampedusa, in Sicily - the closest and safest harbour. Now its captain has been arrested, but it’s unclear what will happen next.

If you’re asking me what do I make of all this - I don’t know. It’s a mess. 

For instance, there are studies showing that if NGO ships patrol international waters, the crossing gets more dangerous, because people smugglers don’t bother finding good ships - they know they just have to get migrants off the coast of Libya, and someone will pick them up. This means more risk for the immigrants themselves, and more money for the smugglers. But on the other hand, no rescue ships there means no help at all, so if something goes wrong, those people are doomed. The same ‘yes but’ applies to many other issues concerning migration. Like, a lot of migrants coming in (and these are people who were left with nothing, including ID) means more of them disappearing into thin air, because of the badly-organized and overcrowded camps. We know thousands of them end up exploited by criminal gangs - in Italy, a particularly brutal business is managed by the Nigerian mafia, which trafficks thousands of women into prostitution and terrifies them into obedience thanks to ‘black magic’, but there’s also agricultural workers, people forced into drug trafficking, kids who end up homeless and so on. Another major problem is that - other than the Syrians - the immigrants who got to Europe over the last decade are difficult to integrate into the legit labour market because they lack the necessary qualifications. Most of the European is now tertiary-based, which means you need some kind of post-high school diploma to do anything, and research shows about half of those coming here didn’t even finish primary school.

(To be very clear: I’m not saying this is in any way their fault, or something that can’t be fixed. But: it does encourage a battle of the have-nots, as people at the bottom - including chunks of the native population, immigrants from Eastern Europe and more recent immigrants from the rest of the world - compete for those few and miserable options open to them, like run-down housing, meagre welfare checks, and a handful of jobs you don’t need qualifications for.)

On top of that, many migrants would need a lot of support, because they escaped from horrific situations - not only those torture camps in Libya, but everything else you can think of: civil wars, political persecution, brutal rapes, whatever - that’s also something that has a cost no one wants to cover. And finally, since coming to Europe is so dangerous, most immigrants tend to be young men on their own - which is exactly the ‘worst’ group of people in any culture.

(Sorry if that sounds bad, what I mean is - we know that for whatever reason, young men everywhere tend to be more reckless than other social groups, and that increases the chance for risky behaviour - especially when the person is not ‘kept in check’ by a well-structured community. Thus, a young man without family or friends is more likely to make stupid or dangerous choices - for himself or others - than, say, a middle-aged father or a young woman.)  

All of this, as daunting as it is, could be solved - after all, this is not an invasion: it’s numbers we can manage - but probably won’t because:

1) There’s some interest in keeping the situation as it is. More migrants means more political success for right-wing and extreme right parties, not to mention huge profits for a lot of people.

2) Right now, the EU can’t agree on anything because of reasons. 

3) Nobody wants to do the right thing, ie treat Middle Eastern and African countries with a modicum of respect and actually support them and their development instead of propping up whatever strongman is convenient and robbing their citizens of whatever isn’t nailed down.

4) The countries on the EU borders have their own issues and right now it’s very hard to imagine those issues ever going away. Like, under many respects Italy’s basically a failed state that relies on the goodwill of half its citizens to keep trudging forward. It never rooted out clientelism, corruption, or tax evasion - plus, it still hasn’t defeated its own mafias, and despite an exceedingly brave and dedicated bunch of policemen and judges (plus all those ordinary citizens risking their necks every day by saying no and living an honest life), the battle against foreign mafias (like the Albanians, and more recently the Nigerians) is probably a task beyond its means.

So, well - sorry this turned into a novel. I guess what I think is - I admire people like Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete and everyone else who volunteers and fights for the most vulnerable, and I think the current government is a disgrace, but ultimately immigration is a political problem whose only solution is the usual solution to everything else: more courage, more competence, more transparency; less inequality, less greed, less corruption. More democracy, and a democracy operating without the (overt and covert) influence of powerful lobbies. Less support to dictators, fair wages for workers and fair prices for raw materials - even if that includes higher prices for Western consumers. And, above all, more regulations and less power to corporations and stakeholders.

Very few people actually want to leave their homes, but if we keep forcing them out, then they’ll keep fleeing - with all the consequences that entails.  

[honibabysworld]

I always hate change

I am notoriously bad at coping with change.

I get nostalgic for things as they are happening, and when I am put into a position where I could choose to grow I usually will decide against it solely because that means something would change. And. I. Hate. Change.

Much to my friends distaste I will almost always find ways of getting out of things. I will avoid getting my license because to go from passenger princess to the person behind the wheel is too much change. I will stay in a town I hate because moving somewhere else is too much change. I will lose my friggin mind during a break up not because of the guy but because it is too much change.

So naturally this carries over into jobs. When I first got a new job I panicked. I couldn’t possible start something new. To mold my day to day life around a task that wasn’t going for three mile long walks like I have done almost everyday since I was fourteen sounds like a nightmare. Unfortunately, student debt, living in a capitalist society, and being an adult means that I had to get a job. So I did.

And then I realized that eventually I would not have that job. Whether it was my choice, or out of my control, a job is not forever. The panic set in again. Once a month I have a mental breakdown at the concept of no longer having my job. I check indeed constantly, thinking that seeing other jobs like mine might somehow soothe my unease (it doesn’t). I save every dollar I make to prepare for the moment and binge “the great resignation” videos on TikTok. I track the economy, preparing for a societal collapse and listen to podcasts on investing knowing damn well I am too scared to move any of my money from its cushiony saving account into a ROTH IRA because that would once again, require me to change something I have become so used to.

My days have been plagued by thinking about my job so much so that I have been failing at it. I have been paralyzed with fear about what will happen to me to me when I lose my job.

Was the workforce always like this? Did my grandfather also worry about his job like this when he was working in the 1950’s? Is being afraid of being on the chopping block just another part of the American Dream they forgot to teach me about in history class.

And most importantly, why do I care so much? I don’t love my job that much. It’s the same way I have been with boys. I found the breakup so earth shattering not because I loved him (though sometimes I did, I’m not that heartless), but mainly because I couldn’t handle the change. And that is the same way it is with my job. I don’t find the idea of leaving my job earth shattering because it is all I want to do, I am scared of the fact that to no longer work there means that something has changed.

I am deciding to try to embrace change this year. So with that I’m quitting my job. Ok, that’s a lie, but I will try to work on embracing change so that maybe I won’t have to spend everyday worrying about how horrible it would be if I ever decide to leave my job in the future.

[uss-edsall]

The Berliners did not fold under the pressure of the blockade. Instead, that pressure, a pressure of incomprehensible force, transformed them into something beautiful and pure and able to withstand the hardest blows. Clay had been convinced, since he first came to Germany, that he “could not hope to develop democracy on a starvation diet.” So the Americans, for the three years since the war, had tried to feed the German people. They did it without any demonstration that they actually cared about what happened to their defeated enemy. Clay crowed he “had no desire to do things because it was for their good.” And for those three years the attitudes about democracy among Berliners, the people who had heiled and fought for Hitler, had barely budged. Every time they were asked, they had replied, by wide margins, that if forced to choose, they would pick economic security without liberty over freedom and democracy with hunger. The month the siege began, they had repeated their verdict: 61 to 34. In November, when the decision was not abstract but real in a way that no one could have ever guessed it would be, they were asked the question again. For the first time since the end of World War II, perhaps for the first time in the seven-hundred-year history of Berlin, their attitude had changed. Berliners now chose “free elections, free speech, a free press, and freedom of religion” over “economic security and good employment opportunities” by 54 to 40. Clay and the other Americans had been wrong. A commitment to democracy had come to Berlin—a devotion so fierce it would awe those who took its comforts for granted—at precisely the city’s most trying moment. The years of effort in trying to revive Berlin’s economy had not only failed, they had failed to lead Berliners to embrace the ideas of freedom. What had been needed was an experience of metamorphosis, a common endeavor to bring the victors and vanquished together, and—most of all—a touch of humanity and kindness. The Airlift fed and warmed Berlin as much as it could, but Berliners might well have buckled that winter if the endeavor had been only a movement of machines in the sky with the aim of maintaining America’s options in a strategic outpost. Instead, Hal Halvorsen’s candy drops had been a catalyst that had transformed the character of the Airlift and the way Berliners thought about it. He had “really started something,” the New York Times wrote on the last day of October, which was more true than they knew. Halvorsen was “the one person who won the hearts of the Berliners—adults and children alike,” wrote Inge Gross, who was fourteen at the time. As he came to represent the Airlift and America to the Berliners, through him America became a country that cared enough about the defeated Germans to, in those months of strain, deliver candy to children—an act without any ancillary benefit or ulterior motive, a gift of plain compassion. And while, to him, kindness may have been its own reward, the candy drops—and the Airlift in general—paid dividends that changed the psychology of the German capital. A fifteen-year-old girl wrote during the Airlift that it reminded her “that in this world there are higher things than national egoism—namely humanity and the existence of all peoples in human dignity.” Berliners came to feel they had to live up to the faith the world was putting in them. Three years after the blockade ended, the West Berlin evening newspaper Der Abend asked its readers to answer the question “What do you remember about the blockade?” Results poured in. A stonemason wrote that the “people who for a long time had been opposed to us in battle suddenly stood at our sides as if they were our own brothers.” Another Berliner found it a wonder that “things turned out in a way that nobody could easily believe. The enemies of yesterday became the friends of today.” A laborer recalled, “Early in the morning, when we woke up, the first thing we did was listen to see whether the noise of aircraft engines could be heard. That gave us the certainty that we were not alone, that the whole civilized world took part in the fight for Berlin’s freedom.” So the Berliners resolved not to “betray the Airlift pilots who were helping us without interruption, trusting in our steadfast behavior.” Despite their troubles, they were unbowed. “I walked proudly through the streets,” wrote another. “I was helping to write a proud page in the history of Berlin’s housewives.” It is easy to dismiss the psychological impact of Halvorsen and even the Airlift as mere sentimentality. But something real happened in Berlin that winter of the blockade—the mind-set of Berliners changed dramatically—and it had real consequences. In July, when they thought the blockade was only, could only be, temporary, 43 percent of Berliners in the western sectors said they would leave the city if they could. By October, with winter approaching, war a real possibility, their city splintering, the number had dropped by a third. In the years after the war, Berlin had become “Crime Capital of the World”—it was racked with gang warfare, violent robberies, and brutal murders. But as the blockade wore on, as Berliners should have, by all rights, grown more desperate, crime began to drop. Indeed, it plummeted. Overall, crime rates fell by 20 to 30 percent during the blockade. There were 39 percent fewer robberies in 1948 than there had been the year before. Berliners were assigned plots of land to cultivate, tiny strips of soil where they could plant a few vegetables. “It is one of the most inspiring phenomena of the present time,” observed a Christian Science Monitor reporter that November, “that not a single leaf of lettuce, not a single cabbage head, is taken by strangers from these unprotected beds.” Crime fell so far, so fast that dire winter that the place that had been “Crime Capital of the World” only a year earlier now had the lowest crime rates of any big city in the Western world. But it was not just the Berliners that had been transformed. The attitudes of the Americans had changed as well. They had come to Berlin determined to punish the Germans so that they would never turn to totalitarianism again. Yet neither harsh reprisals nor detached efforts at providing for Germans’ well-being and security had done much to foster devotion to the principles of democracy. Halvorsen, intuitively, had understood that the way to change Berliners’ outlooks was to treat them as people, not as pawns in a global chess match. Without intending to, without even knowing it, Halvorsen had provided a lesson to the eminent foreign policy experts and imposing generals in Washington. The Cold War was a new kind of war, one that would be fought and won not primarily with bullets and armaments but with ideas and appeals; it would be waged, for the most part, not by great powers battling over territory but by a competition for the affections and convictions of people on every continent. Hal Halvorsen and the Airlift had showed that in a new type of conflict there was a different use for armed might, that for democracy to take root it required a change in minds and hearts more than in economic conditions, that America’s strength was not just military muscle but an undisputedly moral voice.

The Candy Bombers, by Andrei Cherny

[trevorxokc258]

Punishing Guidelines for Cannabis Ownership in Arizona

"It occurred to be just recently while seeing tv that the U.S. Federal government is really nothing more than the political version of Jabba The Hutt from the Celebrity Wars films. As you might recall, Jabba was a formless, sluggish moving, overweight entity that ruled with an iron fist while feasting on sources brought to him. He did not pay for anything, he simply took them, and he was not there to assist anybody however himself. Those he ruled over had no say in exactly how their sources as well as wealth were made use of and also had no chance in removing Jabba from his position of power. Type of sounds like our political course presently being in DC.

Jabba came to mind today as I thought about some recent events in which the Federal government has obtained so huge that it is doubling back on itself and also putting itself in some really unusual circumstances and also conflicts with the fact of the world around us:

- According to an article in the July 23, 2010 issue of The Week publication, a Boston Federal judge has actually ruled parts of the Federal Protection of Marital Relationship Act to be unconstitutional. This act prohibits the Federal federal government from recognizing gay marital relationships and granting Federal benefits. The court ruled that the Federal regulation forces Massachusetts to discriminate against it very own citizens. Currently for the unusual component. the Obama administration is now compelled to appeal the judgment, although his management as well as the Democrats accountable of Congress oppose the Protection of Marital relationship Act and want it repealed. The Federal federal government has actually obtained so huge that it is expending lawful resources for something that it does not want to exist in the first place.

- This unusual circumstance is similar to the present illegal alien scenario. A current Associated press short article reported that the most up to date data relative to illegal boundary crossers reveals that the Federal federal government just recently had the highest degree of prosecutions for illegal aliens as well as the greatest deportation degrees of illegals given that they started tracking such data however at the same time this same Federal federal government was in court combating the brand-new Arizona state law that was attempting to stem the circulation of illegal aliens right into that state.

- Returning to gay marriages, according to a July 15, 2010 Associated Press short article, the nation of Argentina lately came to be the first Latin American country to legislate gay marital relationship. The article reported that Chile and also several various other South American countries are most likely to attempt and also follow suit. Do we believe that our Jabba, flaunting as the American political course, has any type of possibility of making that happen in this nation when it locates itself in court defending against gay legal rights?

- According to a short article in the August issue of Factor magazine, considering that 1996 fourteen states as well as the District of Columbia have legislated cannabis use for clinical objectives and several various other states are taking into consideration doing the same. This remains in straight conflict with Federal legislation which has actually in some cases led to Federal raids of medical marijuana suppliers which are illegal under Federal regulation yet legal under state regulation. This is additionally in conflict with Obama the campaigner that intended to legalize the medicine when he ran for President but now defends the banning of it at the Federal level. Again, federal government has actually gotten so big that we have actually entered the unusual zone concerning medical cannabis where it is lawful at the same time as being prohibited.

- Mentioning medication disputes, a recent Associated Press short article reported that the Federal Veterans Matters company would permit its clients to make use of medical marijuana if those patients lived in the fourteen states where clinical cannabis is legal. Thus, one arm of the Federal government (Veterans Matters) is perfectly fine with medical cannabis use while other arms of the Federal government (FBI, DEA, Federal statuary) wishes to wipe it out.

- If you assume the Federal federal government has a medication trouble currently, wait up until the Oakland Common council elects on whether to enable commercial farming of cannabis to be established in city limitations, commercial ranches which would produce marijuana for medical usage along with for usage in items ranging from baked items to body oil. Winning applicants who would operate these farms would have to pay annual authorization costs as well as 8 percent of their sales to taxes along with carry $2 million in responsibility insurance coverage. Comparable efforts are being pushed in various other cities throughout the state along with a November tally problem to legislate non-medical use marijuana, according to the article. Currently think about the materials of a short blurb in the July 23, 2010 issue of The Week magazine that reported on a Rand Study that ended from their analysis that the legalisation of marijuana would decrease the street rate by approximately 90%. Therefore, the initiatives in California might help in reducing the street cost of the drug which in turn would significantly lower the power, wealth as well as impact of the Mexican drug cartels which would certainly be an advantage. Nevertheless, in the face of this good set of end results (more profits for the local governments, less of a stigma of cannabis customers, less law enforcement resources invested in breaking marijuana users, the weakening of the Mexican medicine cartels) do we believe that the Jabba the Hutt monster in DC is nimble sufficient to comprehend what the advantages are or will it proceed down its path of problem at the Federal medicine enforcement level?

- Think About a Washington Message write-up from Might, 2007, entitled ""Federal Loans Fuel Push For Coal Power Plants."" The short article talks about a remaining Anxiety age Federal program that supplies inexpensive financings to build coal terminated, high contamination nuclear power plant utilizing taxpayer money. According to the write-up, ""the [financing] assistance is a significant pressure behind the rush to coal plants, which spew co2 that scientists blame for worldwide warming."" Hence, while the Obama administration is pushing a climate control bill in order to fight versus worldwide warming, the same federal government is funding nuclear power plant that do just the contrary. Makes no sense.

- A current Affiliate Press short article reported just how the Feds had busted 94 people for defrauding the Medicare program. This was a great development but why was our Jabba so sluggish in obtaining these arrests done? Medicare fraudulence has been taking place since the day Medicare began several years ago, why did it take such a painfully sluggish time to begin apprehending the cheats? Among those jailed had filed over 3,700 deceitful insurance claims under her name before she was detained, just how sluggish can you get?

We might go on and on. The U.S. federal government has obtained so big and so slow, just like Jabba the Hutt, that its lots of folds up of skin hide waste, stupidity and the doubling back on itself, i.e. government laws and also actions in conflict with itself or the desires of those running the federal government. We might go on and on regarding exactly how sluggish, ineffective, and also inefficient our Jabba is, about just how our Jabba never ever fixes a problem whether it is insecure borders, failing public institutions, rising healthcare prices, etc., how our Jabba wastes unknown billions of bucks on trademarks, useless efforts, and fraud-infested programs, or exactly how our Jabba does not know how to control the economy, cbd doral causing skies high public debt levels and also a really creaky economic situation with low growth as well as high unemployment.

Jabba is very poor for all of us yet he is tough to displace. Through the allocate process, the gerrymandering of Legislative areas, do-nothing project financing regulations, as well as various other approaches, Jabba has numerous defenses against defeat in an election, defenses that also a Jedi light saber might not quickly pierce. Long-term, it is crucial we start to enforce term limitations on political leaders to make sure that they never ever again get as fat, sluggish, inefficient, and ineffective as Jabba The Hutt. Short-term, this November is crucial since it starts the procedure of electing out the Jabba incumbents and ultimately entering some sleek, reliable, as well as courageous Jedi warriors that will make the difficult decisions to get the size of federal government in control as well as make that downsized federal government extra effective and also much less odd and less contrasted."

[yaltonrp-blog]

Congratulations Becca! You have been accepted for the role of Hiro Komatsu with the FC of Sen Mitsuji. We found Hiro fascinating and look forward to seeing where you take him. Please send us an account within the next 24 hours with the ask and submit boxes open.

Welcome to Yalton! We look forward to roleplaying with you.

OOC:

Name/Alias: Becca

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Age: 17

Timezone: EST

Activity Level: I’d say a solid 7. Like everyone, there are days where I’m more active and eager to roleplay than others, but I usually do take time to come onto my character account everyday and at my worst, my replies will take place every other day.

Things you aren’t willing to write: Smut

IC:

Biography Info:

Character Name: Hiro Komatsu

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Gender: Cis Male

Age: 22

Major/Position: Philosophy Major

FC: Sen Mitsuji

Biography:

The Komatsu family has always been the epitome of elegance in their town of Hiraizumi, Japan. Ancient Japanese culture and practices still run deep in the town to this day, with it’s agriculture based economy and plethora of historic monuments. At the age of eight, Hiro knew that the small town life would never accompany him as he visited Tokyo for a distant relative’s wedding. The most people Hiro had ever seen in one place at one time were the 103 kids in his year gathered together for an assembly. It was safe to say that stepping off the train and into Tokyo city was unlike anything he had ever witnessed before. Since that day, Hiro was obsessed with the thought of leaving his town to go live somewhere new and exciting, preferably somewhere far away from the farmer filled town of Hiraizumi.

Hiro wasn’t so much of a bad kid as he was a trouble maker. He was anything but neglected, but it’s safe to say his older brother Sho received the most attention from his family. With Sho’s stellar grades and a full ride scholarship for basketball to the University of Tokyo, Hiro couldn’t help but be kept in his 6′5″ brother’s shadow. While eighteen year old Sho was meeting up with the Prime Minister to be condemned for his amazing academic achievements, Hiro was being suspended from school, this time for stealing his teacher’s grade book and altering his friend’s grades. Hiro was stealthy, so if he wanted to get away with little things like that he could, it’s just that the chase was a lot more fun.

While Hiro’s father was born in Japan, his mother is from Philidelphia, Pennsylvania. She came to Japan to teach English and eventually met Minato Komatsu, and the rest was history. Though Hiro was aware of his family in the states, he never actually met them. With only a measly seven cousins residing in Japan, Hiro’s mother explained how she was one of eight, and there’s over thirty other relatives from her side of the family he’s never met. It seemed as if his seventh suspension was the last straw from his parents, as the day he turned fourteen, Hiro was fresh prince’d all the way to Philly to stay with the grandparents he often forgot existed.

Philidelphia was incredibly different from Hiraizumi, but in every way Hiro had hoped it would be. The schools were bigger, people more diverse, and Hiro had learned to prefer the savory American food over the traditional Japanese dishes back home. Though his family feared the culture shock would take him by surprise, they could have never imagined he’d fit in so nicely. Hiro was initially only supposed to reside in Philly for a year, but he was doing so well that his parents decided to allow him to stay for however long he pleased. Although he was considered very smart back in Japan, here in Philly his intelligence was exceptional as he quickly became the top of his high school class. While his peers struggled with teenage angst during high school, Hiro had never felt better. Hiro had girls, boys, and pretty much everyone else he wanted at the tip of his fingers, because who wouldn’t be attracted to the smart yet bad boy from Japan?

His bad behavior stopped in school, but that didn’t prohibit Hiro from engaging in less than admirable activities behind his family’s back. He became quite good at holding his alcohol as Hiro had a party almost every time his grandparents were out of town. If he wasn’t hosting one, he was most certainly attending one. Starting the third week he entered America, Hiro went to a house party at least five times a month. He’d get black out drunk or higher than heaven with his friends, something his family failed to realize until he was seventeen and headed home from what must’ve been his thousandth party. With only a visa, Hiro couldn’t drive, so he was dependent on his buddies to bring him home from whatever they had been doing that night. Though he knew better, his friends didn’t, and decided it would be a good idea to drive everyone home intoxicated. Paramedics arrived at the scene seven minutes after the crash to find the bottom half of the car 100 feet away from the scene of the accident, the tree the car hit completely toppled over, and no survivors except for Hiro who’s legs were completely shattered and stuck between the passenger’s seat and dashboard.

Hiro’s left leg was able to be saved, but his right one was forced to be amputated below the knee as it was completely mutilated. While the rest of his body was practically untouched besides for a few wounds requiring sistches, Doctors didn’t realize there was something else wrong with Hiro until four months after the accident during his last days in rehab. Due to the car stopping so fast while going such a high speed, Hiro’s upper body went right through the windowshield and into the tree which eventually toppled over the car. The impact caused parts of his skull to shatter and enter his frontal lobe, a problem that was presumed solved by an immediate surgery. However, that proved to not be the case once the frontal lobe damage became prominent in his behavior. The once charismatic and somewhat sweet boy quickly became a mix of all different personalities in one. Mood changes had become frequent, and the smallest things would now set Hiro off. His volatile behavior spontaneity had quickly become the main concern for those around him.

As he learned to live with his prosthetic and had been attending a therapist daily, now eighteen year old Hiro was sent home a total of five months after the accident. He finished his senior year by taking summer school classes and being tutored. It was harder to concentrate but still proved manageable as Hiro graduated with one of the highest GPA’s in high class. His family back in Japan flew over for a weekend as they had a party in celebration of this accomplishment, but it seemed as if everyone returned to their daily lives except for Hiro himself. He had plans to apply to some of the biggest colleges in the US for Computer Science, but the accident caused him to lost passion for most things in life. Instead, Hiro decided to take a gap year, getting a job at a local diner. It’s surprising how many tips a crippled nineteen year old with a pretty smile can make.

Eventually Hiro started applying to colleges again. He was lucky enough to take the SATs during his Junior year a earn a near perfect score, but it was still difficult getting accepted almost two years after graduating high school, However it wasn’t all for nothing as Hiro opened what he thought would be his fifth rejection letter only to find out that come fall, he’d proudly be a Yak. Though his battles are far from over, Hiro can proudly say he’s doing better. Weekly therapy sessions and time to himself has improved his behavior immensely, but there are times where he’s set off by some seemingly meaningless things. There’s still a long way to go, but for the first time in his life, Hiro can say he’s actually excited for the future.

State at least one headcanon about the character:

Ever since his accident, Hiro has refused to touch any alcoholic beverage. Although the crash wasn’t his fault, he can’t help but feel responsible for not doing something. He’s been told all his life that coke and rum mix, but booze and driving do not. Hiro is terrified that for any instance if he were to consume alcohol again that history will somehow repeat itself.

Though most expect him to be a womanizer of sorts, Hiro has always identified as pansexual. Sure, he’s flirty with the ladies, but his interests are not influenced by gender identity. He constantly says how his love for another isn’t with the body, but the mind. Hiro is unapologetically proud of his sexuality and greatly values the time it took for him to understand that being so is okay.

Japanese is his first language and he didn’t learn English until age eight.

He has a strong dislike for all of social media except Instagram, where he constantly posts pictures of the most random things he can think of. If it’s artsy enough, Hiro will snap a photo and upload it in minutes. He does use other social media as well but only to keep up with his friends, as he rarely posts any of his own content on there.

Traditional Japanese instrumental is his favorite type of music to listen to, however he is also a big fan of Alternative rock and Grunge bands like Nirvana, Sublime, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The two contrasting genres are an accurate representation of Hiro’s personality.

If you were to tell high school Hiro that he’d be majoring in Philosophy, he probably would’ve laughed in your face. Up until his accident, he was set in stone that he’d be majoring in something having to do with technology. However, in the past few years Hiro has been plagued with a constant question regarding everything: Why? He’s always been interested in theory, and as his love for science dwindled, his passion for the study of ideas about almost everything rose.

He doesn’t exactly know what job he wishes to pursue come graduation, so he presumes graduate school will be his next step.

[scarletwelly-boots]

Books Read 2017

I read 35 books this year. I'm about halfway done with #36, so I might make a smaller post later if I finish it before the New Year. I will also make a follow-up with the top ten so you don't need to read this whole thing. This post will briefly review each book (and damn I slacked this year; last year I got through 39 books).

As last year, each entry will include the title, author, and the entry of this year's reading challenge that it fell under.

1. All the King’s Men, by Nora Sakavic (A book that’s been on your TBR list for way too long). This is book three of the All for the Game trilogy, and holy shit you have to read this. It’s the best book in the trilogy. It is a series about a college sports team who play a made up sport called Exy, which is basically a more violent version of lacrosse. I’m not a huge sports fan, but the way she writes Exy matches had me on the edge of my seat. The team is made up of all “at-risk” students, the main character being a kid on the run from his mob boss dad. Trigger warning for the series for violence, sexual assault/rape, abuse, drug use, I may be missing some things. It was so good though.

2. Chopsticks, by Jessica Anthony (A book of letters). This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I kind of cheated on including this for this part of the challenge. It’s not entirely epistolary. It’s more mixed media. The story is told through pictures, letters, newspaper articles, notes, etc. It was good. It’s about a girl who’s basically this piano prodigy who meets a boy and falls in love.

3. East, by Edith Patton (an audio book). This year was going to be the year I reread books I haven’t read since junior high, but I kind of fell through on that, so I think this might be the only one I actually read. It’s a retelling of the Scandinavian fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which in turn is basically a version of Beauty and the Beast. I was obsessed with Beauty and the Beast retellings (and fairy tale retellings in general) when I was fourteen. The book certainly holds up over time. I definitely recommend it.

4. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz (a book by a person of color). Guys, everything you have heard about this book is true. It is so cute, and beautifully written. Two very different boys meet at a swimming pool when they are fifteen, and almost immediately become inseparable best friends. Also, if you can, the audiobook is surprisingly cheap on Amazon and read by el amor de mi vida, Lin-Manuel Miranda, so the book has that going for it too. 11/10 would recommend.

5. The Summer Palace, by CS Pacat (a book with one of the four seasons in the title). This is a short story in the Captive Prince series, and while it is absolutely adorable and so sunny, you need to read the trilogy to understand and appreciate it. It’s so sweet, with Laurent and Damen finally allowed to get to know each other and explore their personalities without the immediate threat of death hanging over them. Definitely recommended, but only after you read the trilogy, which I also obviously recommend.

6. The Course of Irish History, by TW Moody &co (a book with multiple authors). This is like 800-page textbook-grade Irish history, from the Ancient Celts to the Celtic Tiger economy in the 2000s. It is the leading book for Irish History courses, as I understand it. Guys. I loved this book. It took me forever to read, but I love Irish history books. It’s almost the only nonfiction I can sit through. Will you like it? Probably not. Do I recommend it anyway? Absolutely. 

7. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire (a book with a cat on the cover). Might’ve cheated on this entry too. Okay, listen. I have zero interest in reading the other books in the series and I’m sorry, but the musical was ten times better. However, there are several things about this book that I love. (And I read this in January so how accurate my memories are is questionable.) Elphaba is absolutely bi/pan in this and you cannot convince me otherwise. There are two munchkins who aren’t in the musical but who are absolutely gay as the Fourth of July. I’m pretty sure I remember someone who could be read as trans. This book was very queer. I just have no attachment to the characters that I know will be in the other books. If you want to read it, I’d recommend it. If you have the opportunity to see the musical instead, go with that option even if it’s the more expensive choice.

8. Fence, vol. 1, by CS Pacat (a book by an author who uses a pseudonym): CS Pacat is back, this time with a modern sports comic about fencing. This is a literal comic book guys, so it was really short, but vol. 2 is out soon so it’s okay. I liked it. I like fencing and CS Pacat, so I enjoyed it. Too short, but I know that’s how comics work. Yeah, go read it and support comics.

9. The Raven King, by Nora Sakavic (a bestseller from a genre you don’t normally read). “This was a bestseller?” Yeah, okay, so I cheated a lot this year. It should have been a best seller. This is book two in the All for the Game series. I already explained this series above, but guys read it, it’s so good!

10. Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green (a book by or about someone who has a disability). Yay, John Green wrote another book! Yep, it’s a Green book all right. But it was really, really good. Yes, this is coming from someone whose favorite book is still The Fault in Our Stars, but listen. The main character has anxiety like crazy, and Green, having anxiety himself, writes it so well. Almost too well; the character’s anxiety was starting to give me anxiety. I loved it. Read this book.

11. A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson (A book involving travel), this is a classic. Bryson goes to hike the Appalachian Trail, which is very very long. He takes along his somewhat stupid friend from home. Another nonfiction book, but it was good and had no Ireland at all in it. It was really funny, too. I recommend the audiobook, because it’s really fast to get through, but good. 

12. The Immortal Irishman, by Timothy Egan (a book with a subtitle). I know, but it’s got a subtitle actually but I just can’t remember what it is. Guys, I know it’s Irish history again. This book is whole leagues above The Course of Irish History. It’s not a textbook, and doesn’t read like one. It’s a biography on Thomas Francis Meagher, a revolutionary in Famine-decimated Ireland trying to free his dying and oppressed country from the English. It doesn’t go well. He’s imprisoned and sentenced to death. But instead of dying, he is transported to the Penal Colony in Australia, where he lives and works to free Australia from Britain’s clutches as well, before he escapes to the United States just in time to be a general in the Civil War. It’s really good.  

13. Weird Ireland, assorted authors (a book that’s published in 2017). A very small, independently published book about paranormal, supernatural, and extra-terrestrial sightings in Ireland. It was okay. I finished it in two hours. I knew everything that was in it, and some of it they even got wrong. Even if you’re crazy-obsessed with Ireland like me, you can skip this one.

14. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the movie script, by JK Rowling (a book involving a mythical creature). Did you see the movie? Then you’re good, you don’t need to read the script. Bye.

15. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones (a book you’ve read before than never fails to make you smile). Did I say TFiOS is my favorite book? Sorry, I meant this one. Did you see the movie? Don’t care, book’s better, go read it. This may be my most frequently read book on my shelf. It’s sooo good!

16. Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt (a book with career advice): I hate to say this about a fellow Irishman and a celebrated author, but Frank McCourt? not a great guy. The book was good, because I’m also a teacher, so some of what he was saying was relatable to me. But the guy teaches high school English, and even though the book follows him from his thirties to like his sixties, he’s kind of salivating over the high school girls and it was making me very uncomfortable. He never actually does anything about his attraction (at least not in the book), but I was still like this is wildly unprofessional please stop. 

17. Loki: Agent of Asgard vol. 1, by Jason Ewing (a book from a nonhuman perspective): This was the second-ever graphic novel I’ve ever read guys. Yes, I had a weeabo phase in junior high like everyone else, so I did read manga, but comics were never really that interesting to me. So I was Thor: Ragnarok six times this year. Why did I see it six times? I love Loki and their genderfluidity, even if the MCU won’t acknowledge that my love so obviously gf. So I decided to read all the comics where it’s canon that Loki is genderfluid. This book was so good, please read.

18. Graceling, by Kristen Cashore (a steampunk novel). Cheating again, sorry. This was more fantasy than steampunk. It was also a junior high favorite I’m reading again. In this world, there are people born with two eye colors that signify they have special abilities. Some are benign, like being an amazing baker or the ability to tell someone is lying to you, but some are more sinister. The main character, Katsa’s grace is for killing. It’s a good book.

19. The Irish Civil War, by Tim Pat Coogan (a book with a red spine). A very short book highlighting the Irish Civil War 1922-1923. I liked it, because the civil war is basically the only section of Irish history I was still a little foggy on, so it was helpful. Will you like it? Only if you’re into Irish history like me. This is not Immortal Irishman.

20. Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan (A book you loved as a child). We read this with my fifth graders last year. I loved this book when I was ten, but I got so much more out of it this second time around. It’s a really good book, even if you’re not a child. Esperanza starts out the daughter of a wealthy rancher, but when her father dies under shifty circumstances, she and her mother are forced to flee to America, where they live with their servants’ relatives in a migrant worker camp in California, facing hardship, discrimination, and immigration laws. It’s very good.

21. Cupid, by Julius Lester (a book with a title that’s a character’s name). This was okay. I thought I’d read it in junior high, but I had no memory of any of it. It’s a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, which is very similar to East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The author tried to be tongue-in-cheek in a few places, which I didn’t appreciate, but overall it’s a pretty good YA novel. 

22. Loki: Agent of Asgard vol. 2, by Jason Ewing (a book with an unreliable narrator). Loki? Unreliable? Since when? Still good, still queer, Freyja pissing me off as always.

23. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel (a book with pictures): Okay, I guess I lied, since this book was a graphic novel and I read it before Loki. It was really interesting. It’s autobiographical of Bechdel’s life and relationship with her dad.

24. The Pirate Queen, by Barbara Sjoholm (a book about an interesting woman). Not only was this about my favorite person ever, Grace O’Malley, stone in Britain’s imperial sandal, but also talked about the relationship between Atlantic-dwelling women and the sea. It covers goddesses, fisherwomen, pirates, adventurers, and sea-witches from Ireland, Scotland, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. It was really interesting and I recommend it. 

25. Timekeeper, by Tara Sim (a book set in two different time periods). Cheated here, too, don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway, this is a steampunk novel in which clock towers actually control time, which means that if there’s a flaw, it affects time itself in more literal ways. It’s about a clock mechanic and a clock spirit who lives in one of the towers and watches over the clock. They are adorably gay, but that’s more of a subplot because someone has been sabotaging the towers and throwing time into chaos. The sequel comes out in January. Good for a debut novel.

26. Across Five Aprils, by Irene Hunt (a book with a month or day of the week in the title). This is about a ten-year-old boy growing up in rural Illinois during the Civil War, so it talks about how it affects him and his family, as well as covers the course of the war in a more general perspective. It was interesting, and well written, but I think I prefer Hunt’s Up a Road Slowly.

27. The Adventures of Charls, by CS Pacat (a book written by someone you admire): Another Captive Prince short story that should be read after The Summer Palace. Where Green But for a Season (the first CP short story) was sad, and Summer Palace was passionate and cute, The Adventures of Charls is hilarious. Charls, the cloth merchant, was such a great side character in the CP trilogy, and telling the story from his perspective was great. It doesn’t have to be read after the Summer Palace, but at least the trilogy should be read first.

28. Wonder, by RJ Palacio (a book that’s becoming a movie in 2017). Did you watch the movie? Whitewashed, go read the fucking book. I read this with my fifth graders last year too, who loved it. It’s a very sweet story, and the movie was good, but it goes too fast and leaves out some scenes that I liked. Highly, highly recommend.

29. The Foxhole Court, by Nora Sakavic (the first book in a series you haven’t read before). First book (obviously) in the All for the Game series. What are you still doing here? Go start this trilogy!

30. Symptoms of Being Human, by Jeff Garvin (a bestseller from 2016). I think I cheated again, but this book should have been a bestseller. Quality of the story gets a solid 7/10, but this is the only novel I know of that has a canon human genderfluid character, and representation is so important and for a cis dude, this guy wrote genderfluid shockingly well. Characterization and representation gets a 10/10 because I just ignored the “I’m a whiny teenager, no one likes me, my parents don’t get me, woe is me” chorus. Some of it was justified, because they were being bullied, and they weren’t out to their parents, but still, the book was written very young adult-y. 

31. The Story We Carry in Our Bones, by Juliene Osbourne-McKnight (a book about an immigrant or refugee). The subtitle describes the book best: Irish history for Irish-Americans. Down side: very watered down Irish history because it’s a small book and just an introduction to Irish history. Up side: More information and context of the history of the Irish in America, because my personal studies have pretty much entirely skipped over that aspect of my heritage. If you’re Irish-American and looking to learn a little more about your ethnic past, but don’t want to dive headfirst into the deep end of Irish everything like me, you should read this book. If you’re willing to study more in-depth Irish history, skip this book and I have some better recommendations for you. 

32. Loki: Agent of Asgard vol. 3, by Jason Ewing (a book from a genre you’ve never heard of): Cheated; I know what a comic book is. This is the last volume in this series. My only qualm is a spoiler, so I’ll give it 8/10.

33. Original Sin: Thor and Loki in the Tenth Realm, by Jason Ewing (a book with an eccentric character): Who is more eccentric than Loki “Always-Extra” Laufeyson? This is the first comic I’ve ever read, and I have to say it was very good. Featuring genderfluid!Loki all the way, actual Father-of-the-Year this time Odin, Freyja’s shockingly shitty parenting skills (maybe this is a theme in the comics, but coming from actual-angel!Frigga in the MCU, this was upsetting for me), and Thor abandoning the Avengers in a fight to start another battle in another realm because Thor is a fucking over-dramatic bastard. 

34. Huntess, by Malinda Lo (a book that’s been mentioned in another book). I read Lo’s Ash a few years ago and loved it. Huntress, while okay, didn’t quite live up to the hype I’d applied to it after reading Ash. It was good, and had a very mythical Ireland feel to it that I liked, and it was very gay, but I don’t know, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. 

35. Ever, by Gail Carson Levine (a book based on mythology). I read this book when I was fourteen, too (guess I did read a lot of books from junior high). I love this book. It’s about a young god who meets a monotheistic mortal girl and they fall in love despite the differences in their religion. I didn’t love it as much as I did in junior high, but it’s still good. Levine also wrote Ella Enchanted, which is very good and more well-known than Ever.

[jimoshaughnessy]

Getting the Most Out of Your Equity Investments

As we approach 2018, I thought this final chapter from the 4th edition of What works on Wall Street might be a helpful frame of reference for equity investors.

“To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.”

                       --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 Investors can learn much from the Taoist concept of Wu Wei. Taoism is one of the three schools of Chinese philosophy that have guided thinkers for thousands of years. Literally, Wu Wei means “to act without action” but in spirit means to let things occur as they are meant to occur. Don’t try to put square pegs into round holes. Understand the essence of a circle and use it as nature intended. The closest western equivalent is Wittgenstein’s maxim: “Don’t look for the meaning: Look for the use!”

 For investors, this means letting good strategies work. Don’t second guess them. Don’t try to outsmart them. Don’t abandon them because they’re experiencing a rough patch. Understand the nature of what you’re using and let it work. This is the hardest assignment of all. It’s virtually impossible not to insert our ego or emotions into decisions, yet it is only by being dispassionate that you can beat the market over time.

 We’ve lived through the most tumultuous market environments since the 1920s and 1930s since I originally published this book in 1996. A stock market bubble between 1996 and March 2000—the likes of which we had not seen since the late 1960s and before that the roaring 1920s—led many investors to throw out the investing rule book. The more insanely overvalued a company, the more it soared. Everyone talked of “the new economy” and how it really was different this time. Sticking with time-tested investment strategies during the stock market orgy was close to impossible. Month in, month out you had to stand on the sidelines, watching your reasonably-priced stocks do nothing while the over-priced “story” stocks soared. And, as often happens with stock market bubbles, just as the last sane investors capitulated and learned to love the stocks with the craziest valuations, along came the reckoning—all the previously gravity-defying stocks came crashing back to earth. Fortunes were lost and millions of investors lost their faith in the long-term potential of stocks. What’s worse is that after recovering from the bear market of 2000-2003, a new bubble appeared in real estate markets and the debt used to finance them. This new bubble popped in any even more destructive fashion than that of the dot.com stocks earlier in the decade and brought worldwide markets close to the brink of collapse, ushering in the worst bear market for stocks since the Great Depression. Investor’s faith in equity markets was almost completely destroyed by the great market crash of 2007-2009.  The S&P 500’s loss of 37 percent in 2008 was second only to 1931, where it dropped by 43 percent. People were literally hoarding cash, terrified to make any investment in the stock market. And much as the bubble years gave birth to the idea that things really were different than in the past and we had emerged with a “new economy”, the bust years also gave birth to the concept of “the new normal.”  To its advocates, the new normal meant that returns would be permanently lower going forward than they had been historically and there was really nothing that we could do about it. Money poured out of equities into bonds with investors desperate to avoid risk of any kind. The September 2010 issue of Institutional Investor had a cover story entitled “Paradise Lost: Why Fallen Markets Will Never be the Same”, in which the authors argue that “the financial crisis has discredited free-market capitalism and given its state-driven counterpart a boost.”  Yet we are forever fighting yesterday’s battle without paying attention to what we can learn from historical events.

 In markets moving from extreme speculation to extreme despair, believing in Ockham’s razor—that the simplest theory is usually the best—is almost impossible. We love to make the simple complex, follow the crowd, get seduced by some hot “story” stock, let our emotions dictate decisions, buy and sell on tips and hunches and approach each investment decision on a case-by-case basis, with no underlying consistency or strategy. On the flip side, when equity returns are horrible over a long period of time, we are far too willing to assume that stocks will never generate returns comparable to those of the past and abandon them in favor of less risky assets like bond and money market funds.  Even fourteen years after this book was first published—showing decade upon decade of the results of all the various types of strategies—people were more than willing to throw it all out the window because of short-term events, be they good or bad. No wonder the S&P 500 beats 70 percent of traditionally-managed mutual funds over the long-term!

A Taoist story is illuminating: One day a man was standing at the edge of a pool at the bottom of a huge waterfall when he saw an old man being tossed about in the turbulent water. He ran to rescue him, but before he got there the old man had climbed out onto the bank and was walking alone, singing to himself. The man was astonished and rushed up to the old man, questioning him about the secret of his survival. The old man said that it was nothing special. “I began to learn while very young, and grew up practicing it. Now, I’m certain of success. I go down with the water and come up with the water. I follow it and forget myself. The only reason I survive is because I don’t struggle against the water’s superior power.”  

 The market is like the water, overpowering all who struggle against it and giving those who work with it a wonderful ride. But swimming lessons are in order. You can’t just jump in, you need guidelines. Our study of the last 84 years with the CRSP dataset and 46 years with the COMPUSTAT suggests that to do well in the market, you must do the following:

 Always Use Strategies

You’ll get nowhere buying stocks just because they have a great story. Usually, these are the very companies that have been the worst performers over the full time period of our study. They’re the stocks everyone talks about and wants to own. They often have sky-high price-to-earnings, price-to-book and price-to-sales ratios. They’re very appealing in the short-term, but deadly over the long haul. You must avoid them. Always think in terms of overall strategies and not individual stocks. One company’s data is meaningless, yet can be very convincing. Conversely, don’t avoid the market or a stock simply because things have been bad over the short-term. Few investors could see the compelling valuation of the overall stock market in March 2009, yet it was at this time that stocks were a screaming buy and about to embark on a huge rally. If you had a simple rebalance strategy in place at the time which allocated between stocks and other investments, the strategy would have forced you to buy more stocks. But as Goethe’s quote at the beginning of this chapter makes plain, acting is hard, and acting in line with what you think is almost impossible.   If you can’t use strategies and are inexorably drawn to the stock of the day, your returns suffer horribly in the long run. Remind yourself of what happens to these stocks by looking at charts of all the dot.com high flyers between 1998 and 2002 and the tables and charts for how value stocks came soaring back after the stock market bubble burst in 2000. If, try as you might, you can’t stick to a strategy, put the majority of your money in an index fund and treat the small amount you invest in story stocks as an entertainment expense.

 Ignore the Short-term

Investors who look only at how a strategy or the overall market has performed recently can be seriously misled and end up either ignoring a great long-term strategy that has recently underperformed or piling into a mediocre strategy that has recently been on fire. Over the last 15 years, I cannot count the number of times investors have gotten extremely excited about our strategies as they were doing well relative to their benchmark and the same number of times that investors became despondent about short-term underperformance. Tragically, investors seem hardwired to inordinately focus on very short periods of time, often completely ignoring how the strategy has done over long periods of time. As investors, all of our information about returns is focused on extremely short periods of time. Witness everyone falling all over themselves to explain why the stock market has gone up or down in a single day! What’s funny is that over very short periods of time, the stock market is relatively impossible to forecast, yet when you extend your horizon, the market becomes far more understandable. As I mentioned in the introduction, if you look at the 50 worst ten year performances for the stock market, there is not a single instance where over the next ten years the stock market failed to go up.

 The point is that at some time in the future any of the strategies in this book will underperform the market, and it is only those investors who can keep their focus on the very long-term results who will be able to stick with them and reap the rewards of a long-term commitment. You should always guard against letting what the market is doing today influence the investments decisions you make. One way to do this is to focus on the rolling batting average of how your portfolio is performing versus its benchmark. Much like we focus on the rolling base rates for all of the stock selection strategies we have tested in this book, you can do the same for your portfolios performance versus its benchmark. When you look only at how your investment portfolio has performed for the last quarter, year, and three and five year period, you are simply looking at a single snapshot of how you’ve done. Now, this might make you very happy if you’ve done exceedingly well for that particular period but it also might make you want to abandon your strategy if you’ve done poorly relative to other strategies available. In both cases, I would argue that you are potentially misled by only looking at a snapshot. What if it is December 31st, 1999 when you take a look at this snapshot? For an investor who had loaded up on pricey dot.com and tech stocks five years earlier looking at the snapshot and  he or she will think they are a genius—my God, I will be able to retire in a few years if I keep growing my portfolio at this rate! Or how about an investor who had kept their portfolio devoted to small-cap stocks and large-cap value fare? They might look at how they’ve done and wince about the relative lack of great returns in their portfolio and be tempted to follow the same strategy as the first investor with a tech and dot.com heavy portfolio. By looking at the snapshot at that point in time and extrapolating it into the future, both investors would have been seriously misled. The tech-heavy portfolio went on to crash and burn just as the small-cap and value portfolio began to soar.

 By focusing on how your portfolio is doing against a benchmark on rolling periods, you will get a much better sense for how you are continuously doing against the market and will be much more likely to be willing to stick with a strategy that may be underperforming recently but has an outstanding win rate versus the market over all rolling periods. It gives you continuous feedback that allows you to take the hills and valleys with greater restraint than if you simply looked at one point in time. It also lets you put recent performance into the historical context of the strategy—if you’re relative performance is down but still very much in line with what the strategy has done historically, you will probably be more able to stay the course.

 Finally, this advice is equally useful after sharp draw downs for stocks. In March of 2009 I wrote a commentary for Yahoo Finance that was entitled “A Generational Opportunity”  in which I argued that many investors were facing a once in a lifetime gift to purchase equities at valuations that we hadn’t seen since the early 1980s. I urged middle-aged investors to increase the equity allocation of their portfolio to 70 percent to take advantage of the fear that permeated the markets and for the most part the response was silence. People were so shell-shocked by what had happened over the previous 15 months that no amount of data would move them to take advantage of the situation. That’s why ignoring the short term may be both the hardest and best thing you can do for the overall health of your portfolio.

 Use Only Strategies Proven Over the Long-Term

Always focus on strategies whose effectiveness is proven over a variety of market environments. The more time periods you can analyze, the better your odds of finding a strategy that has withstood a variety of stock market environments.  Buying stocks with high price-to-book ratios appeared to work for as long as 15 years, but the fullness of time proves that it is not effective. Many years of data help you understand the peaks and valleys of a strategy. What’s more, sometimes a strategy might make intuitive sense, like buying stocks that have the greatest annual gain in sales, yet a review of the data tells us that, in the long-run, this is a losing strategy, probably because investors get so excited by those huge annual sales increases that they price the stocks to perfection, which is rarely achieved.  Attempting to use strategies that have not withstood the test of time will lead to great disappointment. Stocks change. Industries change. But the underlying reasons certain stocks are good investments remain the same. Only the fullness of time reveals which are the most sound. Remember how alluring all the dot.com stocks were in the late 1990s? Don’t let the investment mania de jour suck you in—insist on long-term data that supports your investment philosophy. Remember that there will always be current market fads. In the 1990s it was internet and technology stocks, tomorrow it might be nanotechnology or emerging markets, but all bubbles get popped.

 Dig Deep

If you’re a professional investor, make certain to test any strategy over as much time and as many seasons as possible. Look for the worst-case scenario, the time it took to recover from that loss and how consistent it was against its relevant benchmark. Note the largest downside deviation it had against the benchmark and be very wary of any strategy that has a wide downside deviation from it. Most investors can’t stomach being far behind the benchmark for long.

 If you’re an individual investor, insist that your advisor conduct such a study on your behalf, or do it yourself. There are now many websites where you can do this research. With all the tools now available to individual investors, there is simply no excuse for not doing your homework. A wonderful resource for individual investors is the American Association of Individual Investors. Their website (www.aaii.com) is chockablock full of helpful ideas as well as an entire section devoted to stock screening. Check the links at www.whatworksonwallstreet.com for any new sites that might appear to aid you in your research.  

   Invest Consistently  

Consistency is the hallmark of great investors, separating them from everyone else. If you use even a mediocre strategy consistently, you’ll beat almost all investors who jump in and out of the market, change tactics in midstream, and forever second-guess their decisions. Look at the S&P 500. We’ve shown that it is a simple strategy that buys large capitalization stocks. Yet this one-factor, rather mediocre strategy still manages to beat 70 percent of all actively managed funds because it never leaves its strategy.  Realistically consider your risk tolerance, plan your path and then stick to it. You may have fewer stories to tell at parties, but you’ll be among the most successful long-term investors. Successful investing isn’t alchemy, it’s a simple matter of consistently using time-tested strategies and letting compounding work its magic.

 Always Bet With the Base Rate

Base rates are boring, dull and very worthwhile. Knowing how often and by how much a strategy beats the market is among the most useful information available to investors, yet few take advantage of it. Base rates are essentially the odds of beating the market over the time period you plan to invest. If you have a ten-year time horizon and understand base rates, you’ll see that picking stocks with the highest multiples of earnings, cash flow, sales or lowest value composite score has very bad odds. If you pay attention to the odds, you can put them on your side.  You now have the numbers. Use them. Don’t settle for strategies that may have done very well recently but have poor overall batting averages. Chances are you’ll be getting in just as those long-term base rates are getting ready to reassert themselves.  

 Never Use the Riskiest Strategies

There is no point in using the riskiest strategies. They will sap your will and you will undoubtedly abandon them, usually at their low. Given the number of highly effective strategies, always concentrate on those with the highest risk-adjusted returns.

Always Use More Than One Strategy

Unless you’re near retirement and investing only in low risk strategies, always diversify your portfolio by investing in several strategies. How much you allocate to each is a function of risk tolerance, but you should always have some growth and some value guarding you from the inevitable swings of fashion on Wall Street. Once you have exposure to both styles of investing, make sure you have exposure to the various market capitalizations as well. A simple rule of thumb for investors with ten years or more to go until they need the money is to use the market’s weights as guidelines. Currently, 75 percent of the market is large-cap and 25 percent is small- and mid-cap. That’s a good starting point for the average investor. Unite strategies so your portfolio can do much better than the overall market without taking more risk. Indeed, while this book only covers stocks that trade in the United States, with a reasonable number of them being American depository receipts of Foreign-domiciled companies that offer shares to U.S. investors, you might think about having your portfolio aligned in a similar fashion to the MSCI All World Index. Currently, the U.S. makes up 35 percent of that index, with Japan, the United Kingdom. France and Canada rounding out the top five. If you include the next five countries by market capitalization, Hong Kong, Germany, Australia, Switzerland and Brazil, you would cover 74 percent of the total market capitalization in the world. The point is, these strategies work outside the United States as well, and a well diversified portfolio should reflect this. We have run tests similar to those in this book on the MSCI dataset that begins in 1970 and found that, for the most part, these strategies work equally well in foreign markets.

 Additionally, you should have a plan for your entire portfolio, not just the equity portion. One of the simplest and most effective strategies for your entire portfolio is to rebalance your allocations to various styles and asset classes back to your target allocation at least once a year. If you are working with a financial advisor, he or she is probably already doing this for you, but if not, figure out what makes the most sense for you and then make sure that you follow your allocation. What this effectively does is force you to buy more of an investment style or an asset class when it has done poorly and take money away from styles and asset classes that have done well. It would have served you extraordinarily well near the bear market bottoms of the last decade, as it would have forced you to move money from fixed income into equities at a time when most investors were fleeing the equity market and allowed you to take advantage of the big move up from the market bottom. But it also would have served you well during the last market boom, as it would have had you trim equity allocations and put additional money in fixed income and other assets. It’s important to have a strategy for your entire portfolio.

   Use Multifactor Models

The single factor models show the market rewards certain characteristics while punishing others. Yet you’re much better off using several factors to build your portfolios. Returns are higher and risk is lower. You should always make a stock pass several hurdles before investing in it. The only exceptions to this rule are our Composited factors like the Composited Value Factor, the Composited Earnings Quality and so forth. These are essentially multifactor models as they include several factors and require a good score on each for a stock to rise to the top.

 Insist On Consistency

If you don’t have the time to build your own portfolios and prefer investing in mutual funds or separately managed accounts, buy only those that stress consistency of style. Many managers follow a hit-or-miss, intuitive method of stock selection. They have no mechanism to reign in their emotions or insure that their good ideas work. All too often their picks are based on hope rather than experience. You have no way to really know exactly how they are managing your money, or if their past performance is due to a hot hand unguided by a coherent underlying strategy.

 Don’t bet with them. Buy one of the many funds based on solid, rigorous strategies. If your fund doesn’t clearly define its investment style, insist that they do. You should expect nothing less.

  The Stock Market Is Not Random

Finally, the data proves the stock market takes purposeful strides. Far from chaotic, random movement, the market consistently rewards specific strategies while punishing others. And these purposeful strides have continued to persist well after they were first identified. We now have not only what Ben Graham requested—the historical behavior of securities with defined characteristics—we also have a 14-year period where we’ve witnessed their continued performance in real time. We must let history be our guide, using only those time-tested methods that have proven successful. We know what is valuable and we know what works on Wall Street. All that remains is to act upon this knowledge.