Swart Donkey

There is nothing more Free Market than failure. Bail-outs etc. are “third way” interventions where Government steps in. Particularly bad if ...

A foundational principle of Capitalism is that money can work. To turn ideas into reality, you need capital and containers. One form of cont...

If you want a problem to be solved quickly, all the decision makers need to be in one room with no distractions, and intimately involved in ...

Meritocracy isn’t supposed to be a defence of privilege. It is the idea that capital and power get allocated on the basis of talent, effort,...

Most people live hand to mouth. All companies need capital to run their businesses. They can’t just rely on the equivalent of the work and ...

Tacit Knowledge is the idea that there is stuff we know that we can’t explain. Virginia Postrel explores this powerful concept in “The Fut...

There are a limited number of jobs. There are a limited number of employers. Many of the jobs that people currently do are being mechanise...

Money making is not about you. Hand-to-mouth living is all about you. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is all about you. Meritoc...

The marriage between income and expenses is an unhappy one. Incentives matter. I can see the crude rationale behind a superficial meritocr...

I am an Anti-Apartheid Activist. I grew up in the regime that gave Separateness legal form. That makes defending and encouraging the four ...

A focus on Real Return means looking through the noise. The default disclaimer for most investments is “past performance is no guarantee o...

Capital can earn money. Capital can grow. If Capital is allowed to grow until it earns enough money, something magic can happen. People *h...

Once the penny has dropped that money can earn a living if you don’t kill it, the question of what job to get it remains. Quality Financia...

An Engine is Capital that earns (on average) more than you spend (on average). The key word there is the one in brackets. To see what is r...

Building an Engine (Capital) starts with finding an income. The raw material is the first person’s labour. Labour is like the Oil that sta...

Money making, once you release the question “what do I want to be?”, boils down to Capital allocation. Where will resources be most effect...

Disability Insurance covers the risk that you are unable to work. If you can’t work, you still have to live, and the way society is struct...

I am a fundamental equity investor. I think money is better at working than people, and people shouldn’t have to be productive assets. This...

I have three pots in which I invest my Engine. I manage about 2/3rds myself. I then have one pot (in a Global Equity Fund) which I milk (...

One objection to Capital is that the owners aren’t doing the work. There is a moral feeling that the people involved should be the people ...