To put these complicated matters into very simple terms, you create a cycle virtually anytime you borrow money. Buying something you can’t afford means spending more than you make. You’re not just borrowing from your lender; you are
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“Early on in the top, some parts of the credit system suffer, but others remain robust, so it isn’t clear that the economy is weakening. So while the central bank is still raising interest rates and tightening credit, the seeds of the recession are being sown. The fastest rate of tightening typically comes about five months prior to the top of the stock market. The economy is then operating at a high rate, with demand pressing up against the capacity to produce. Unemployment is normally at cyclical lows and inflation rates are rising. The increase in short-term interest rates makes holding cash more attractive, and it raises the interest rate used to discount the future cash flows of assets, weakening riskier asset prices and slowing lending.”
― A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises
― A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises
“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? “No, thank you,” he will think. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.”
― Man's Search for Meaning
― Man's Search for Meaning
“Rewards encourage repeat behavior, but did you know that they also restore our willpower? Cognitive scientist Art Markman says, “When you stand in front of that buffet table filled with desserts, seek out a friend and have a fun conversation.” 39 It may seem like a puzzling suggestion, but rewards of all kinds may be a viable way to restore your willpower. Based on Baumeister's “ego depletion” concept, multiple studies have concluded that people can overcome ego depletion by restoring glucose.40 Some scientists, however, wanted to put another willpower restoration theory to the test: rewards. Their theory was that perhaps it is the reward from eating sugar that restores willpower.41 Sugar is known to activate the reward centers in the brain. They started with typical exercises to deplete willpower. Then, one group swished a solution sweetened with artificial sweetener and spit it out (artificial sweeteners do not activate the brain’s reward centers). The”
― Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results
― Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
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“While tops are triggered by different events, most often they occur when the central bank starts to tighten and interest rates rise. In some cases the tightening is brought about by the bubble itself, because growth and inflation are rising while capacity constraints are beginning to pinch.”
― A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises
― A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises
Peter’s 2025 Year in Books
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