Outside the Box
Half & Half: Why Rowing Works
December 24, 2013
For today's special Christmas Eve Outside the Box, my good friend Ed Easterling brings us pearls of wisdom on the subject of rowing vs. sailing. "Rowing?" you ask. "Sailing?" And, you're thinking, "I would surely prefer to be a sailor." Well, not so fast. Let Ed explain why putting your back into your investing process can pay off handsomely. A nice piece to think about as you are mashing the potatoes or icing the cake. You can see more of Ed’s marvelous work at www.crestmontresearch.com.
Sometimes with all the news of disasters, wars, and plagues, we forget that the human experiment is still fundamentally intact and advancing. My great friend Louis Gave shot me a note sharing this optimistic thought in his Christmas greeting:
The United Nations recently released a heartening update on its ‘millennium goals’ for the developing world, with many of its 2015 targets on the way to being met, or indeed already met. The target to halve the number of people living on less than US$1.25 per day was achieved in 2010; the proportion of undernourished people fell from 23% of the developing world in 1990-92 to under 15% in 2010-2012; more than 2 billion people gained access to improved sources of drinking water. The list goes on but suffice to say that never in history have so many people across the globe lived so comfortably. This reflects the fact that with global GDP set to exceed US$74 trillion this year, never has the world produced this much.
New energy production (and new forms of energy), robotics, nanotech, the second (or is it the third?) wave of the communications revolution, and the amazing discoveries in biotech are all unfolding before our eyes. Global trade is expanding, and slowly but surely governments are changing. An ebb and flow thing, to be sure, but the tide is clearly lifting more boats than ever.
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