Tag: luck

San Francisco Realty Realities Bite or Nourish, Depending on Which Side You’re On

I am fortunate to live in Noe Valley, San Francisco, California, USA, North America, Earth. I am doubly fortunate to have bought a house in En-Vee Ess-Eff See-Eh in 1996 (though admittedly the downside of this time scaling is that it puts me well into the second half — final […]

Luck vs. Skill: The Whitman Example

I knew folks at eBay while it was going through the steep part of the hockey stock — which is SiliconValley-ese for growing like all get out, the imagery being based on the shape of a graph of the revenues (and hopefully profits) of a company experiencing hyper-growth, with dollars […]

Remembering What the Red Queen Said: The Luck of the Draw

In related news: 1. Luck vs. Skill in Texas Hold ‘Em. Earlier this week, in U.S. vs. DiCristina, a federal judge in New York ruled that “skill, when sufficiently honed, makes the difference between winning and losing in poker.” http://is.gd/jwEiOL at p. 118. The judge, apparently persuaded by all sorts of graphs […]

The Wholly-Terrifying Risk of Non-Diversifiable Assets

Most of the ways in which we store money are diversifiable. For example, if you store some money in the stock market, you can own a bunch of different stocks. And these days you can even own a single investment which represents, to a very close level of approximation, proportionate […]

Of Hockey Players and Home Buyers: The Luck of the (Birth) Draw

Not long ago (15 years, say) you could buy a decent house in San Francisco for $40k down and $2.5k a month. For many, that was doable, especially since it cost $2.5k to rent that same house. And, as icing on the cake, you got the appreciation ride — an […]