#that's not Intrinsically a Quality of the Enemy it's just. a common human failing

[aeide-thea]

anyway as long as i'm voicing Pet Peeves today it frustrates me when people critique their enemies for things that, if you strip them of the Enemy Flavor, are absolutely equally true of the groups they themselves belong to

[reneeswing]

My Freedom Day

March 12, 2020.

Today is My Freedom Day, named by CNN. I figure everybody has his/her own journey to freedom wherever they are living in this world.

I cannot find a better moment to talk about my growing pains about understanding what freedom means to me, especially at the onset of COVID-19 turns into a global pandemic event.

I have always been a big advocate of freedom, I am living for people's fundamental right to speak freely, to make choices based on their own will. But I did not quite understand what this word actually means to my life, until I moved to New York 12 years ago. I was amazed, in a way even overwhelmed, by how much freedom people have in that society. I have heard everyone, old people, young people saying freedom means they can do whatever they want. Being a person continuously conflict myself between my Chinese nature and my nurtured Western value, I felt that I finally got to understand or even enjoy my own rights: doing whatever I want. But over time, things have changed and I changed. 12 years later, when I held my first ballot ticket in Amsterdam for the general government election, I sensed that I was executing something bigger than my free will. It was the responbility that my freedom entails. With so many years going back and forth, trying to figure out what strikes the right balance in freedom, it finally hits me that day. To me, freedom means you can do whatever you want, only that is half of the truth. The other half is: if you are honoring it with responsibilities, and you do not detriment other people's freedom.

Yes, the second half is equally important as the first one. Your freedom to choose, your freedom to speak comes with responsibilities in equal weight. We should have all known about it and we should let the younger generation learn about it.

Now you may want to ask: why is it relevant to COVID-19 pandemic? That is a fine question! 

Three days ago, Christian Amanpour, a world renowned journalist interviewed Dr. Bruce Aylward in her show. Dr. Aylward is an epidemiologist, serving as the Senior Advisor to WHO Director General. In the past months, he has spent some quality time in China to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. In the show, he confirmed that the situation in China has been largely under control. Other than Hubei province, the rest of the 31 provinces have had drastic decrease in new cases for a longer period. It was all nice to hear him giving credit to how effective Chinese measures were to contain the spreading there, but what struck me more was his appraisal on Chinese people's near altrustic efforts in the past months. Here's what he had to say:

"…What struck me the most, one was that you could control the respiratory disease like that. The other one is the hundreds and hundreds of people that I spoke to, in markets, on planes, in trains, in streets and in hotel. What we heard again and again was just this common sense of fear of what this virus could do to its population, especially the older population. They were worried about that. And a tremendous sense of responsibility, and fear that they could fail in their personal and collective need to stop this thing and protect the world. I heard this again and again from average Chinese, and from doctors and nurses. Well they were not average, I thought they were heroes. I was not hearing these messages from the top, from the government, I was hearing this from the average people. I want to make sure that in all the coverage of this and all the way we talk about the country, we do not diminish the work of everyday heroes. They are very very humane."

These words almost brought me to tears! Yes, because this is what average people in China, for example, my family have done and is still going through in everyday life. Other than in Hubei province where some mandatory quarantine was executed, the majority of the Chinese population was confining themselves from unnecessary activities and executing social distancing on a voluntary basis. 

I must admit that in China, one could never criticize the government's malpractice as the way how Western media does it. Freedom of speech is still in scarcity in China. As a matter of fact, Chinese social media went nuts again recently because an article narrating about one of the initial whistleblowers who exposed the COVID-19 was censored. Netizens went extremely creative to retweet the news in different languages, in reversed scripts or even partially using gibberish in order to dodge the censorship. Moreover, at the heat of the epidemic, the Western media has called the Chinese measures draconian, claimed only an authoritarian regime could go that far to lock up the majority of its population.

But look at what happened in today’s world. If I understood Dr. Aylwood correctly, he stressed that this so-called Chinese approach is not a Chinese invention. It is a proven method of tackling commutable disease that the US CDC has codified for the rest of the world. So the observation is that we human, as a group, are just very bad at learning from old lessons, aren’t we? In merely one month of time, infection started to break out in the entire Europe and North America. We’ve seen these things repeated all over the place, community spreading because of crowd gathering, shortage of testing kits, infection across medical staff and seismic burden on our medical system. Being a person who survived from one quarantine a month ago in Shanghai and now getting into another one, it all sounds too familiar. What truly worries me was the average level of ignornance in the society towards the servere consequences caused by the pandemic. 

With some European cities being locked down by the governments, people were more upset about their freedom being refrained, hence willing to risk other people’s lives. I heard someone saying: it is a flu and only old people could catch it. If they don’t get sick, their lives should not be compromised. There were people partying around the town as part of the protest to the Government’s lockdown decision. This is purely irresponsible and just wrong. Less chance of contraction to COVID-19 DOES not make young people invincible. You could still get sick, and more likely you could infect other people. Even if you are young and healthy, having a higher odds of survival, you could still carry this virus to those who are weaker and more susceptible. Any individual who gets sick at this moment is adding pressures to the already overloaded mecial system and all our dedicated hospital staff. Remember for now, 4% of the medical workers in Noord-Brant, the Netherlands are infected and counting. In Italy, situation is in a worse dismay: overflown patients could only sleep in the hosital corridors. 

We are at the critical turning point of our society. We are dealing with a hostile situation, only that the enemy is invisible. Hypothetically, I don’t think people would have been in the mood for complaining about bar closing, if it was a missile attack in play. But it is equally dire and impactful. If we do not change our attitude of ignornance, it is possible that there would be no party to go to, there would be no business to prosper and there would be no investment to yield. The impact of this pandemic will be much more resounding to our social and economic lives, even after all this is over. 

What comes as a sharp contrast is people’s attitude in China. As Dr. Aylwood said, Beijing managed to mobilize the entire population by immobilizing themselves. The popluation, the people became their entire surveillance system. In a way, the magic bean that China has is its own people: average people around me just have this intrinsic thoughts of selflessness, hoping that temporary quarantine could help to contain the virus in time and more effectively, hence protecting more people who are susceptible and who are in the rest of the world. 

I couldn’t help but wondering, isn’t that just another level of understanding in freedom? People are willingly compromising their freedom of act, with the hope that in this way, they could help to achieve a bigger goal than their own egos: to restore order and welfare in their society. 

What does freedom mean to me? It is a pursuit of freedom at a personal level, but sometimes, it is a pursuit of freedom of the entire human race. When your personal freedom has conflict of interest with that of a bigger population, you make a difficult yet worthy choice. Isn't that what Nelson Mandela did in his 27 years life in prison?

As I was finishing up with this piece, a charter flight carried a group of Chinese epidemiologists and 31 tons of medical supplies arriving in Fiumicino Airport in Rome. In the meantime, China also sent epidemic experts and medical supplies to support Iran and some other countries in a dire situation. These Chinese doctors, before they even have time to recover from their lassitude, they are already onto their next calling. They are the true heroes! And all the medical staff who are fighting day and night on the frontier, they are the true heroes! 

Now, as an average Joe, we cannot do what they do. But we could still do our parts. My dear friends and acquaintances, you have all your rights to make any decisions that you deem fit. All I am asking from you is to take care of yourselves and the people around you, be mindful of all the consequences and empathetic of the situation. Remember in your own time you think that you will never make it a hero? Here will be your moment to shine. Let’s all be part of the solution, not part of the problem. If this means that you need to practice social distancing for the time being, just do it. Stay at home as much as you can, tell your kids why it is important to do so at this moment. It is not just the government’s duty to curtail COVID-19 from spreading, it is a shared responsibility by all of us. If we do as such, we are also the day-to-day heroes. And we do not need to panick, because if collectively we all choose to do the right thing, the virus will be contained and the spring is not far from now. 

What does freedom mean to me? it is our birth right, our source of power, if we honor it with our conceived responsibilities. #MyFreedomDay

[angrycollectordaze-me-blog]

Essay代写：Research on poverty

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- Research on poverty，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了关于贫穷的研究。混合方法研究被认为是进行贫困社会学研究的最佳方法。贫困是一个复杂的社会问题，它不仅涉及数据和事实，而且还涉及对物理现象背后的人类意图的解释。方法论对贫困研究的影响更为直接，但它不能脱离指导认识论。认识论观点的采用不是中立的，而是由社会科学家如何看待不同社会因素之间的联系所决定的。总体而言，混合方法研究被发现是社会科学家研究贫困问题的最佳选择。

Poverty has been a disease of the human society for centuries. In the modern world, poverty is granted with more complex meanings than starving. People suffering from poverty are often deprived of equal social opportunities. They are more susceptible to poor living conditions, lack of material supply, emotional disturbances, alcohol and substance abuse, and a much lower life expectancy than the rich. Meanwhile, the deprived opportunities include the chance of quality education, the chance to improve their society status, and the chance to enjoy traveling, dining, watching movies, reading, participating in sports activities, and going to concerts. These lost opportunities make it extremely difficult for the poor to get rid of poverty. In this essay, several different schools of thought regarding the origin and implication of poverty will be analyzed, with functionalism thoughts identified as the most valid one.

The structuralism (conflict) view of poverty believes that the true nature of poverty is deprivation and exploitation of the poor. A natural conflict exists between the powerful and the weak, or between the rich and the poor. The powerful want to maintain their social status at all costs, and poverty has become the most effective weapon for them to do so. Structuralism view argues that capitalism has created an unequal relationship between the capitalists and the workers (Patnaik, 2012). The surplus values created by workers have been grabbed by the capitalists, leading to the unbalanced distribution of social wealth. Meanwhile, it is extremely difficult for the poor to become capitalists themselves, with no accumulation of wealth or experience. Meanwhile, the wealthy also have other means of influence over the poor, by providing them only with partial information. This is supported by the increasingly monopolized mass media in the modern world. Lack of information and opportunity thus become the major obstacles for the poor to get rid of poverty.

In the age of globalization, such class conflict and deprivation happen not only within countries, but increasingly in the international level (Patnaik, 2012). Poorer countries have little choice but to sacrifice their environment and natural resources to provide cheap labor for the developed countries. Although the structuralism theories present valid points, they have failed to acknowledge the countless cases of success rising from the lower social classes. The people who have been rich a century ago may not be the richest nowadays. In the case of the post-communist Poland, the rising new elite class in the society shows that rather than a systematic flaw, poverty is more of a result of individual pathology (Ost, 2015). This diminishes the claim that poverty is an effective tool of stratification. Poverty should not be viewed as an intrinsic characteristic of capitalism, especially in the age of information and technology, where more opportunities are presented not only to the rich, but all members of the society.

The functionalism theories consider poverty as both necessary and inevitable for society stability. Poverty is necessary because in order for those who are talented to make contributions to the society, they must be properly rewarded. By properly it means personal interest will always be the most effective motivation of individuals (Mackenbach, 2017). Poverty is also inevitable, because it is natural that only a partial of behavioral patterns will be most handsomely rewarded under one social mechanism (Mackenbach, 2017). And such patterns are always the ones that are the most contributive to the development of the sustainment of the society. Preference thus leads inevitably to poverty. Poverty is necessary for the current degree of development of the human society, since there has to be someone to do the less honorable and well-paid jobs, and there has to be someone to consume the low quality but cheaper products. The social hierarchy created by poverty is found to be contributive in certain ways: it improves collective decision-making and coordinate individual actions towards a common goal (Mackenbach, 2017). However, the functions of poverty do not mean that poverty is desirable. Poverty is merely an inevitable stage of the current development of human society, to be replaced by something superior and more just in future developments.

There is also the interactionism and culturalism views of poverty. These theories emphasize not on the definition or origin, but the lived experiences of the poor and the rich. The common emotions induced by poverty include the sense of frustration and feelings of social exclusion, as demonstrated by the poor youths from Northern Ireland (Horgan, 2011). A sub-culture of poverty has been formed among these young people, that they are trapped in a cycle of non-constructive, even self-harming behaviors. Being the outsiders and disadvantaged groups of the society, the poor often have no alternative to poverty, since it has already become part of their mentality and lifestyle. The interactionism and culturalism views pf poverty are effective in explaining specific cases, but they fail to establish an overarching generic rule regarding poverty.

In conclusion, the functionalism theories are found to be the most successful in explaining poverty, due to the powerful logic they offer. Provided with the current physical conditions, the equal distribution of social wealth seems completely impractical: it diminished the motivation of the talented individuals and reduces the social coordination by breaking the existing hierarchy. In the current stage, poverty still contains important social functions keeping the society relatively stable. Meanwhile, it is not impossible for poverty to become obsolete, once the human society enters the next phase of development. After all, poverty is still acknowledged as the enemy of civilization and equal human rights.

References

Horgan, G. (2011). The making of an outsider: Growing up in poverty in Northern Ireland. Youth & Society, 43(2), 453-467. doi:10.1177/0044118X10383543

Mackenbach, J. P. (2017). Persistence of social inequalities in modern welfare states: Explanation of a paradox. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 45(2), 113-120. doi:10.1177/1403494816683878

Ost, D. (2015). Stuck in the past and the future: Class analysis in post-communist Poland. East European Politics & Societies and Cultures, 29(3), 610-624. doi:10.1177/0888325415602058

Patnaik, U. (2012). Capitalism and the production of poverty. Social Scientist, 40(1/2), 3-20.

Portfolio Theme 4.

Poverty has been a topic of interest for social scientists all over the world. both the developed and developing states have an interest in exploring the nature of poverty. In the process, social scientists have adopted diverging paths to study poverty. When approaching a problem related with poverty, researchers often face the tough choice on the most appropriate way to study. Epistemology is the part of philosophy that deals with knowledge, and methodology is the set of methods and principles applied to obtain knowledge. In this essay, the relationship between epistemological and methodological approaches to poverty will be explored, followed by an analysis on the implications of the two methods, and the mixture of them, on social science results.

In general, epistemology serves as the guide for methodology. Poverty is the study of both numbers and phenomenon. Therefore, both qualitative and quantitative approaches are necessary to fully understand poverty in social science. This leaves a complicated situation for researchers to pick the optimal alternative among the numerous ones, and epistemology it the basis of such selections (Balarabe Kura, 2012). Different epistemologies correspond to different methodologies, and different styles of research. One fundamental difference between the styles can be the aim of research: some researchers are trying to prove the existence of objective rules and laws governing the society. Based on these rules, they can apply the same theories to multiple case studies of poverty and gain validity. For example, the functionalism view of poverty is considered a way of generalization, to find the common rules behind poverty. Others try to explain a phenomenon, instead of finding the more generic rules behind it. For example, the interactionism theories regarding poverty is an attempt to explain, with the most comprehensible (relatively) features of poverty presented. Finally, there are also researchers who tend to criticize existing phenomenon, from the logical and ethical perspectives. The social conflict and class segregation view of poverty is an example of this style. Based on the different aims and styles, different approaches have been taken by researchers, arriving at distinctive results. Comparing epistemology and methodology, it can be observed that methodology has a more direct impact on the knowledge production and theory formulation process in social science. However, the basis of the methods adopted is epistemology.

The two major epistemological perspectives are positivism and interpretivism (Bryman, 2012). Positivism emphasizes on the importance of paralleling social science with natural sciences. Naturally, it involves more quantitative research methods. Common methods associated with positivism include experiments, data collection, operationalization, and deduction. Meanwhile, it also involves inductive strategy, by gathering facts to provide the fundamentals of a generic rule or social law. In positivism, only the phenomena and knowledge that are verifiable through the sense are considered valid. This means that positivism is the strict performer of objectivity (Bryman, 2012). The personal values and emotions of the researchers are often forbidden in positivism. Such requirements would inevitably increase the size and scale of research, since more empirical evidence or data must be gathered in order to prove a hypothesis. The number of selected research participants is also significantly larger, with an emphasis on breadth over depth. The outcome of social research guided by positivism principles are laws that are generic and logically sound. Meanwhile, these laws and rules must be able to be scrutinized by anyone and still hold true. In comparison, the interpretivism approach is the exact opposite of positivism. It promotes the distinctiveness of human nature, which requires more than explaining social phenomena, but understanding of them. It is common for researchers to adopt an empathetic attitude towards the research subjects, which is not common for positivism. As a result, interpretivism adopts the qualitative research methods much more frequently, including quasi-experiments, descriptions and in-depth studies of single subjects. This allows researchers to narrow down the size and scale of research, reduce the number of participants. The product of interpretivism can be highly subjective, with strong value or ethical elements contained in it.

Epistemologies and methodologies do not necessarily distinguish from each other absolutely, leading to the formation of a series approaches of mixed methods research (Bryman, 2012). There are multiple ways of integrating quantitative and qualitative research for poverty studies. The triangulation of two approaches is also known as the integration among the two, to provide more reliable results. By applying two approaches at the same time, the validity of a theory can be tested two times, making it more credible than either approach alone. For instance, the theory of the social class conflict as the origin of poverty can be further enhanced with historical evidence from different countries. Failing to provide the deliberate attempt of the richer social class to deprive and exploit the poor, the credibility of the theory is significantly diminished. In addition to the ability to validity and increase the credibility of the results, the mixed methods research will also contribute to a more complete answer to the research question (Bryman, 2012). It is common for gaps to be left when only one type of approach is used in research. Mix methods research aims to achieve a balance between objectivity and subjectivity, between values, attitudes, and facts, so that the final theory created can be accepted by more audience.

The attempt for researchers to hold different approaches as fundamentally different is quite meaningless. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches have some distinctive positive qualities, and the combination of the two only makes the study on poverty more complete. For example, in the research about “Capitalism and the Production of Poverty”, the author applies both approaches in deriving how poverty is formed in the capitalism context (Patnaik, 2012). Since this study involves the international scale of research, data collection becomes inevitable for the result to be valid. The author uses the output and consumption of cereals for different purposes in different regions of the world, to demonstrate the degree of poverty in these regions. Numbers are indeed an honest and direct way to present the facts to the readers. In addition, the social conflict theories of Marx have also been used by the author to aid the argument. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are necessary for the author to derive the conclusion, that poverty is a struggle between the deprived people and the ruling class. In a way, statistics and deduction theories complement, instead of contradicting each other. When people are trying to measure poverty, data collection is inevitable. However, the data collected cannot lead to effective results without qualitative analysis (Schwartzman, 1998). The latter provides data collection with directions, on what are the right questions to asks, and which data are truly valuable to the results.

In conclusion, mixed methods research is considered the optimal way to conduct sociology studies on poverty. Poverty is a complex social issue that involves not only data and facts, but also the interpretation of human intent behind physical phenomena. Methodologies serve as the more direct influence on poverty research, but it cannot be independent from the guiding epistemologies. The adoption of epistemological perspectives (either positivism or interpretivism) is not neutral, but determined by how social scientists envision the connections between different social factors. The determination on whether to integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches in one research should be determined by the epistemological perspectives of the scientists, the nature of the topic, the objectives of the researchers, and multiple other factors (Balarabe Kura, 2012). Overall, mixed methods research is found to be the optimal choice for social scientists in studying poverty.

References

Balarabe Kura, S. Y. (2012). Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Poverty: Taming the Tensions and Appreciating the Complementarities. The Qualitative Report, 17(20), 1-19. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol17/iss20/4

Bryman, A. (2012). Mixed methods research: Combining quantitative and qualitative research. Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press; 4th edition.

Bryman, A. (2012). Social research strategies. Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press; 4th edition.

Patnaik, U. (2012). Capitalism and the production of poverty. Social Scientist, 40(1/2), 3-20.

Schwartzman, S. (1998). The Statistical Measurement of Poverty. Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics.

51due留学教育原创版权郑重声明：原创essay代写范文源自编辑创作，未经官方许可，网站谢绝转载。对于侵权行为，未经同意的情况下，51Due有权追究法律责任。主要业务有essay代写、assignment代写、paper代写、作业代写服务。

51due为留学生提供最好的essay代写服务，亲们可以进入主页了解和获取更多essay代写范文 提供代写服务，详情可以咨询我们的客服QQ：800020041。

[heliosfinance]

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

“If you were to read just five books in your life to become a sensible investor,” I often suggest people seeking my view, “…they have to be Warren Buffett’s letters, Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street, Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, and Howard Marks’ memos.”

Well, if you don’t know who Howard Marks is, let me tell you he is the CEO of Oaktree Capital and is one of the most famous investors who manages to keep a low profile, despite managing almost US$ 100 billion. Marks is also the author of an amazing book – The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor. In its ultimate praise, Warren Buffett writes, “This is that rarity, a useful book”.

I have been reading and re-reading Marks’ memos for a few years now, so was very fortunate to attend a lecture he gave in Mumbai yesterday titled – The Truth About Investing.

It was an enlightening session, just to be in the presence of this legend and hear him out live.

I made some notes from Marks’ lecture, which I present below (most of these are direct quotes from Marks). He calls these lessons as the “brutal truths” of investing. As you would realize while reading the notes, these indeed are brutal truths – stuff that is easier said than done.

Marks concluded his lecture saying what Charlie Munger recently told him – “Investing is not supposed to be easy, and anybody who finds it easy is stupid.”

So I don’t want to feel stupid telling you that what you will read below is easy. But then, in case we are able to practice most of what is written below at most times, we would raise the probability of achieving success in our investment decision making.

Over to Marks and his brutal truths I heard from him yesterday.

On Dangers of Excessive Risk Taking

Keynes said the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. That’s especially true of leveraged investors. That’s the danger of leverage.

There are old investors, and there are bold investors, but there are no old bold investors.

Ego, hubris, and overconfidence are killers of investment returns.

Never confuse brains with a bull market.

In investing, to succeed you must survive.

On Fallacy of Forecasting

Two kind of forecasters – one who don’t know, and one who don’t know they don’t know. You must decide which are you.

Most investors act as if they can see the future. Either they think they can, or they must, or they try to. In my experience, they can’t.

Nothing is more common than investors who are right for the wrong reasons.

Investors would be wise to accept that they cannot see the future and they should restrict themselves to doing things that are within their powers.

We can make decisions not based on what we think could happen in the future, but based on what’s happening today.

The most important choice that any investor can make in the intermediate term is whether to be aggressive or defensive. Not whether it’s stocks or bonds. Not whether is a developed market or an emerging market. But whether it’s a good time to be aggressive, or it’s time to be defensive. And I believe this distinction can be made on the basis of observations regarding the current situation. They do not require guesswork about the future.

On Humility

Very few investors have the nerve to say, “I don’t know.” But that’s how you build integrity in your investment process.

If you start with “I don’t know,” then you are unlikely to act so boldly as to get into trouble.

Our business is full of people who got famous for being right once in a row.

One of the reasons why the future is unknowable is randomness. Events often fail to materialize as we think they should. Improbable things happen all the time.

Anytime you think you know something others don’t, you should examine the basis. Ask yourself – Who doesn’t know better? Why should I be privy to exceptional information? How do I know this that nobody else knows? Am I really that smart, or am I just wrong? Am I certain that I am right and everyone else is wrong? If it’s an advice from some else, ask – Why would somebody give me potentially valuable information? And why would he give it to me? And why is he still working for a living if he knows the future so well? I am always skeptical of people who will tell you the future for five dollars.

The concept of market efficiency – that price of each asset accurately reflects its underlying intrinsic value, or that the market price is fair – must not be ignored. You can know something and it’s possible to know more than others. But the going in presumption should be that everybody is well-informed, and if you think you know something they don’t, you should be able to express the reason for that. It’s not easy, because everyone is trying just as hard as you are.

On Keys to Success in Investing

You can know more than others about companies and industries if you work very hard and if they are not fully followed. This is the knowable. You can control your emotions. That’s very important. And you can behave in a contrarian and counter-cyclical manner. I think these are the keys to success in the investment business, not predictions of the macro future.

While we never know where we are going, macro wise or market direction wise, we should have a good sense of where we are. I think this is very important. And it is possible to enhance your investment results by making practical decisions suited to the market climate.

Superior results do not come from buying high quality assets but from buying assets regardless of quality for less than their worth. That is the most dependable way to achieve success as an investor. And it is essential to understand this difference.

If you are investing based on a fact that everybody knows, it can’t possibly constitute an advantage and it can’t possibly have been omitted from the price. So, you must have some knowledge that is different from that of others. The challenge is most of the time the consensus is about right. So, if you have a lifetime of making predictions that are different, you will make a lot of mistakes. You have to be different and better, and that’s hard.

Being right is not the criterion and it is not necessarily profitable. You have to be just more right than others.

In investing, one way to gain an advantage over others is by ignoring the noise that is created by the constant, manic stream of opinions and by focusing on things that matter in the long run. Is it better to be right in the short term but wrong in the long term? Or vice versa? Clearly, what matters is being right in the long run. And we can all live with some failures in the short run in the interest of being right in the long run.

On Price Vs Value

A low purchase price not only creates the opportunity for gain but it also limits the downside risk. So you can enhance return and reduce risk by buying assets where the value is solid and the price is low. The bigger the discount, the greater the margin of safety. And that is something that is highly desirable for people who want to control risk in their portfolios.

The price of a security at a given time reflects the consensus value. The big gains arise when the consensus turns out to have underestimated reality, or to have mis-estimated reality. To be able to take advantage of such situations, you must be able to think in a way that’s away from the consensus. You must think different and you must think better. It’s clear that if you think the same as everybody else, you’ll act the same as everybody else, and have the same results as everybody else.

On Patience

Sometimes there are plentiful opportunities for unusual returns with low risks, like after the meltdown of Lehman Brothers (2008). And sometimes the opportunities are fewer and risky. It’s important to wait patiently for the former. You should not act the same regardless of the market environment. You should turn aggressive when things are low, and defensive when things are high.

When there’s nothing clever to do, it’s a mistake to try to be clever.

On Role of Behaviour

It isn’t the inability to see the future that cripples most investors. More often, it is emotions. Investors swing like pendulum between fear and greed, and between euphoria and depression, and between disbelief and skepticism. Usually they swing in the wrong direction. They want things after they have risen. And they shun things after they have fallen. This is human nature, and this is one of the greatest enemies of investment returns.

Most investors behave pro-cyclically not counter-cyclically. And it is to their detriment. It is essential to act counter-cyclically.

Cyclical ups and down do not go forever, but at extremes the investors act as if they will.

There are three stages of a bull market –

In the first stage, only a few exceptional people begin to realize that things are improving;

In the second stage, most people believe improvement is actually taking place; and

In the third stage, everybody thinks that things can only get better

The attractiveness of a stock’s price is dependent on how much optimism there is in the price. So, in the first stage, there is no optimism, and that’s a great time to buy. In the third stage, there is only optimism, and that’s a great time to avoid buying. But, of course, few people buy in the first stage and most people buy in the third stage. As Warren Buffett says – “First the innovator, then the imitator, then the idiot.” How I like to say this is what the wise man does in the beginning the fool does on the end. And this is one of the most important lessons in investing.

Markets are riskiest when there is a widespread belief there is no risk. This makes investors believe that it’s safe to do risky things.

In investing, the behaviour of participants alters the landscape (George Soros’s concept of ‘reflexivity’). If people find a bargain, they’ll raise the price so that it isn’t a bargain anymore. It’s not good to assume that the market that offered you bargains in the past will also offer you bargains in the future. And the one thing we must not do is extrapolate asset prices.

Of the most corrosive of all the difficult human emotions is the feeling to sit by and watch other people make money. Nobody likes that. You don’t like it at 60, you don’t like it at 80, you don’t like it at 100, but when it hits 150, you say, “Okay, I’ll get on board.” And that’s usually closer to the top than it was to the bottom.

To be a disciplined investor, you have to be willing to stand by and watch other people make money that you passed on. You don’t have to invest in everything. You don’t have to catch every trend. You should invest in the things you know about.

Success is not good for most people. We all know of people who have been successful that makes them think they are smart, and they have the ability to do everything. Of course, that’s a very dangerous thing.

Every investment approach, even if sensibly applied, will run into environments in which it is not suited. Buy and hold, growth stocks, value stocks, small stocks, large stocks. And that means even the best of investors will have periods of poor performance. Nobody performs great all the time.

Investors have to be able to weather periods when the results are embarrassing. This can be very difficult.

The more you try to be a superior investor, the more idiosyncratic positions you have to take. Invariably they will be unsuccessful for a while, and you will look worse, and the greater will be the pressures to succumb.

Everybody must invest in a way that is consistent to their personalities. And for a mild-mannered person to be a big risk-taker is bound to lead to failure.

In investing it’s very important that expectations be reasonable. Aiming too high will either require excessive risk bearing or guaranteed disappointment, or both. And as Peter Bernstein has said, the market is not an accommodating machine. It wouldn’t give you high returns just because you want.

On Importance of Process

To be a successful investor, you must have a philosophy and a process that you stick to even when the times get tough. This is very important.

If you don’t have the courage of your conviction and patience and toughness, you can’t be an investor because you’ll constantly be driven to fall in line with the consensus by buying at the top and selling at the bottom. But it’s important to know that no approach will allow you to profit from all kinds of opportunities in all environments. You have to be willing not to participate in everything that goes up, and only the things that fit your approach.

Other Most Important Things

Success carries in itself the seeds of failure. Failure carries in itself the seeds of success.

Being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.

The average investor does average, by definition, before fee. And below average, after fee.

Index funds eliminate the risk of underperforming the average (broader market) but when markets go down, they guarantee you will lose as well. So, no one should think that passive investing is low risk.

Charlie Munger told be that investing is not supposed to be easy, and anybody who finds it easy is stupid.

These are all the notes I have from Marks’ lecture. To read them deeper, I would suggest you to read his memos, and of course his book – The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

The post Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B