Welcome to the end of the week! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy this weeks roundup in another edition of Happy Hour.
Savings Promotion Act
Back in the day, apparently, everyone had bread but no toast. To fix this, and get people to save, banks gave away toasters. Okay, not really. But toasters and other kitchen items become giveaways for new account customers. Now, it seems, we’ve gone full circle.
This week the House passed the American Savings Promotion Act. The bill would allow banks to offer incentives, like prizes, to customers who start savings accounts. Think of it like a rewards program for savings accounts. In order to win, you have to save money. Your chance of winning grows as you save more. That alone means you can’t lose.
Munger
Charlie Munger is the other half of the Buffett-Munger duo that built Berkshire Hathaway. He’s a renaissance man. And his investing track record is as impressive as Buffett’s.
In his spare time, Munger plays Chairman of the Daily Journal Corp. After the ’08 crash Munger decided to put a pile of the Daily Journal’s cash to work and it paid off.
This has built up a cult following thanks to Munger’s savvy investing skills. Now, the Daily Journal annual meeting offers us another chance to glimpse inside Munger’s mind. The meeting was this past Friday and is worth digging through.
I recommend reading the Jason Zweig interview and Valuewalk’s collection of notes on the meeting.
Last Call
- Why Finance Breeds So Much Disagreement – M. Housel
- The Error-Proof Portfolio: 6 Asset-Allocation Pitfalls to Avoid – Morningstar
- Investing Against the Odds, and the Facts – NY Times
- Behind the Scenes: Investing Takes a Lot More than Number-Crunching Skills – M. Mobius
- You Can’t Feed a Family With G.D.P. – Upshot