The Sunday Drive - 10/01/2023 Edition [#78]
Musings and Meanderings of a Financial Provocateur
👋🏼 Hello friends,
Greetings from Saratoga Springs, NY! Let's take it easy and enjoy a leisurely Sunday Drive around the internet.
The Sunday Drive is also published at NewLanternCapital.com.
🎶 Vibin'
Underneath the surface of our economy, inflation in food, housing and energy prices has increasingly impacted consumers, especially at the middle and lower income ranges in a very negative way. That sets the tone for the Vibe of the Week.
I’ve been fanboying over Keb’ Mo’ since I first saw his performance at the 1999 Farm Aid concert, and he is still one of my very favorite artists. So this week, I’m vibin’ to one of his best known songs, Soon As I Get Paid. I hope you enjoy this tongue-in-cheek homage to economic hard times.
💭 Quote of the Week
“Until we know we are wrong, being wrong feels exactly like being right.”
– David McRaney
📈 Chart of the Week
Not an especially investment related Chart of the Week this week, more of a socio-economic comment.
This week’s Chart is pretty self explanatory and eye opening. Ironically, the housing market hasn’t been this unaffordable since 1985, the year of the first Farm Aid concert (see the Vibe of the Week above).
The combination of higher mortgage rates and limited supply of inventory for sale has put homeownership out of the reach of many in the U.S. I think that both of these factors will need to change, in addition to continued wage growth if we are to see the return of a more affordable “American Dream".
🚙 Interesting Drive-By's
This week we have articles on Life, Health, Money, and (🤷🏼♂️) Artificial Intelligence:
🤔 A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About - from Morgan Housel
There’s a big difference between how something should work in theory vs. how it actually works in the real world, when technical facts meet human emotions.
People only communicate perhaps 1% of what’s going through their head, so the world is probably 100x crazier and messier than it looks. Related: It is easier to spot other people’s mistakes than your own, because we judge others based solely on their actions, but when judging ourselves we have an internal dialogue that justifies our mistakes and bad decisions. [link]
🏥 Data-driven health is going to be the biggest revolution in the history of medicine - from Longevity.Technology
“We currently focus half of our healthcare dollars on the last year of life, fighting diseases at a time when they are so established and so entrenched that we can only essentially provide palliative treatment,” says Verdin. “By starting early, and continuing throughout life, there’s an incredible potential to suppress the development of disease and to allow people to live better and longer.
“I think the biggest urgency in our healthcare system is the need to increase healthspan – to help people live better, longer and healthier.” [link]
💰 The Soul of Money - from Chip Conley
Money is not a product of nature. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Pennies don’t rain from heaven. Money is an invention; a distinctly human invention. It is a total fabrication of our genius...From the beginning, money was invented to facilitate the sharing and exchanging of goods and services among individuals and groups of people. Money still facilitates the sharing of goods and services, but somewhere along the way the power we gave money outstripped its original utilitarian role. Now, rather than relating to money as a tool we created and control, we have come to relate to money as if it is a fact of nature, a force to be reckoned with. This stuff called money, mass-produced tokens or paper bills with no more inherent power than a notepad or a Kleenex, has become the single most controlling force in our lives. [link]
🤓 What is “Prompt Engineering? - from McKinsey & Company
Prompt engineering is the practice of designing inputs for generative AI tools that will produce optimal outputs.
Better inputs into a generative AI model can make for better results. These inputs are called prompts, and the practice of writing them is called prompt engineering. Skilled prompt engineers design inputs to interact optimally with other inputs in a generative AI tool. These inputs help elicit better answers from the AI model, meaning the model can perform its tasks better, such as writing marketing emails, generating code, analyzing and synthesizing text, engaging with customers via chatbots, creating digital art, composing music, or any of the other hundreds, if not thousands, of current applications. [link]
👋🏼 Parting Thought
If you have any cool articles or ideas that might be interesting for future Sunday Drive-by's, please send them along or tweet 'em at me.
Please note that the content in The Sunday Drive is intended for informational purposes only, and is in no way intended to be financial, legal, tax, marital, or even cooking advice. Consult your own professionals as needed.
I hope you have a relaxing weekend and a great week ahead. See you next Sunday...
Your faithful financial provocateur,
-Mike
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