BULL! A History of the Boom, 1982-1999 by Maggie Mahar

This was a great book, at least for an investing geek like me. Charlie
Munger (2nd in command at Berkshire Hathaway) emphatically recommended
this book back when it came out in 2003. A real in-depth look at the
insanity.

For instance, consider the position of mutual fund managers in 1998. They
are judged by their returns, relative to an index like the S&P 500.
They’re looking at the prices the market is giving companies like Cisco
and Amazon and saying to themselves “this doesn’t make sense.” But they
can’t not buy them. Because even though the rise of the prices is
insane, if they don’t meet or beat that insane rise, they’ll get canned.
If they buy into sensibly priced stocks, which are few and far between,
and they “only” get something like 15% annual return while the Ciscos and
Amazons return 100%, they’ll get canned. On the flip side, if they buy
the stocks that everyone else is buying, like Amazon and Cisco, and then
the whole market tanks, especially Amazon and Cisco, they won’t get
canned, because the index tanked, and hey, everybody was fooled anyway,
right?

So, the ramp up to the 1998-2001 crash slowly weeded out fund managers who
kept their integrity and bought what made sense for their clients instead
of their career. The dark side of Natural Selection: the remaining herd
were well adapted for the environment that selected them (the bull
market), but when that environment changed… extinction of their client’s
dollars.

A very informative read.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!) by Jerome K. Jerome

Compare and contrast Three Men in a Boat (published in 1889) and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (published in 1885).

Finn is the story of a lower class american boy and a fugitive
slave escaping oppression by traveling down the Mississippi River on a
homemade raft. On the way, they encounter danger and adventure. This
book is often considered the Great American Novel.

Boat is the story of three well-to-do English gentlemen (to say
nothing of their dog) escaping the drudgery of work by traveling up the
Thames on a rented sailboat. On the way, they encounter insignificant
obstacles, and make a big deal out of it. This book was originally
intended to be a travel guide, but just got out of hand and became a
novel. For some reason, they also tacked on some ghost stories at the
end, perhaps to fluff up the page count.

Quote from Finn:
“It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with
stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss
about whether they was made or only just happened.”

Quote from Boat:
“I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”

All in all, I enjoyed the writing (likened to that of P.G. Wodehouse, but
I think that’s overstating it a bit), but was left with a “so what?”
feeling