What are your thoughts on the giving pledge? Isn't it better to see
higher levels of overall improvements through the Bill & Melinda
Gates foundation and their interests as opposed to wealthy
philanthropists and donors having their wealth being inherited by their
own targeted charities or organizations?
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Friday, March 25, 2016
The Most Valuable Commodity in the World?
It's not oil.
It's not gold.
It's certainly not money.
It's time. Time is the most valuable commodity in the world IMO. Why? The more time you have the more you can do. We all have the same 24 hours in a day and how we use them is entirely up to each individual.
If we had more time we could eventually acquire more shoes, clothes, real estate, cars, money you name it you could have it.
My grandfather is in the retirement home and the girlfriend he always wanted in high school and was unable to have he finally had her as his girlfriend. Albeit 70 years later but all it took was time for everybody else to disappear lol.
The more time you have the more you can do. Time is our biggest enemy and one thing that we can not gain more of. The hope is with embracing technology that we can figure out a way to immortality and that will help lessen the importance of time but until then its the one thing I would like to have more of.
It's not gold.
It's certainly not money.
It's time. Time is the most valuable commodity in the world IMO. Why? The more time you have the more you can do. We all have the same 24 hours in a day and how we use them is entirely up to each individual.
If we had more time we could eventually acquire more shoes, clothes, real estate, cars, money you name it you could have it.
My grandfather is in the retirement home and the girlfriend he always wanted in high school and was unable to have he finally had her as his girlfriend. Albeit 70 years later but all it took was time for everybody else to disappear lol.
The more time you have the more you can do. Time is our biggest enemy and one thing that we can not gain more of. The hope is with embracing technology that we can figure out a way to immortality and that will help lessen the importance of time but until then its the one thing I would like to have more of.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Do people in South Florida and Southern California spend more money on cars than those Elsewhere?
I wrote this article for my Typepad Blog but wanted to share it with my readers here as well.
This is the sort of question I have pondered for quite some time. As
you see thousand dollar millionaires driving around in luxury automobiles in
South Florida and Southern California. A friend might ask you when propped up at
a bar on a Friday night if this is true. It’s the sort of unanswerable question
that had me intrigued when I first thought of it. It came to me as part of my daily
reverie. My line of thinking was that if you spend more time out in the sun and
generally have better weather, you’re going to want to spend more time outside
driving to places and going to the beach. A car is more like a home to someone
who drives a lot and so they are prepared to pay more for it.
Like a lot of theories, the difficulty lies in how you go about
proving it. It was all very well for Newton to have an apple fall on his head.
He could prove the idea of gravity from that (not that I am comparing my
theories to Newton, you understand)
First define the question.
Before attempting any analysis, I need to set the scope. So to be
clear, the actual question I am going attempt to answer is:
Do workers across a spectrum of employments from South Florida and upscale
communities on the West Coast of the United States spend more money on
purchasing cars in their price range compared to the same workers in say the
Midwest and Mid-Atlantic? We can assume there may be a different variety of
cars purchased depending on location. For example there will be more SUV’s and
All Wheel Drive vehicles in mountain towns that receive snow compared to
Seattle where there is precipitation but very little snow.
Where to start on this journey
then?
Well first off, I have to choose some counties to compare. I am not
going to be able to compare data from every county although I would be forever
grateful and willing to pay somebody to help me expand this data to encompass
purchasing data from all available U.S. zipcodes. Until then I chose zipcodes each
from the following States, Cities, and regions including Americas most famous
zipcode 90210
California
90210 (Beverly Hills, CA)
92651 (Laguna Beach, CA)
Florida
92651 (Laguna Beach, CA)
Florida
33401 (Palm Beach, Florida)
33134 (Coral Gables, Miami)
33134 (Coral Gables, Miami)
Maryland
20847 (Rockville,
MD)
Maryland
63005
(Chesterfield, MO)
Missouri
Which cars should I use for my thesis?
Like the states, the choice of cars is bewildering. I decided to choose
a small selection of popular models and group them by price.
Originally, I really wanted to find the actual prices for cars sold
but finding the data proved to be like finding a needle in a haystack. Whilst
there are automotive economic indicators there seems to be no historical car
sale records for this sort of data. It is possible through the big credit
agencies they may have some additional data that may be helpful for future case
studies conducted. I really thought the
project was doomed without that data though. As its been a theory I’ve been
talking about researching for the last four years I was glad that I was finally
moving forward and working with the data I had at this point.
It then occurred to me that I could use for sale prices instead. There
are a plethora of sites which offer car prices by county, so all I had to do
was run queries by zipcode and car on these databases and hey presto, the data
was available (and for free!)
Of course, I would have preferred to use real prices, but seeing as I
am applying the same technique to find prices for each zipcode and car type,
the approach holds up.
Not everyone will buy a new car.
Well, yes, there is that. Additionally cars depreciate at differing rates.
For the sake of argument, I could have assumed that everyone buys a new car,
but this really doesn’t represent reality. I have decided therefore to include
car prices from 2013-2015.
The following models were used to give us an understanding of different vehicle classes amongst different locations:
Entry Level (new price less than 25k)
Mazda Miata
Nissan Rogue
Nissan Altima
Honda Accord
Mid Range (new price less than
40k)
Toyota 4Runner
Ford F-150
Honda Odyssey
Kia Sedona
Prestige (new price greater than 40k)
Mercedes S-600
Audi R-8
Audi R-8
Chevy Corvette
So who is coming with me on my journey?
Like all the best road trip stories; Goldilocks, the Birth of Jesus
and the Blind mice, three was considered the appropriate number.
Similar to the car selection, I separated the occupations into
partially skilled, skilled, and highly skilled professions and that one
profession from each would be enough. However, I had to ensure that these
professions represented a large proportion of the working population for each
region. (For the sticklers amongst you, the word skilled refers to the amount
of formal education required to perform these jobs. Even someone working in retail
will require basic math skills taught at school)
Partially Skilled
Retail Sales Representative
Skilled
Nurse
Highly Skilled
Physician
You can be pretty certain that if you walk into any major town, you
will find a good proportion of the population employed by these sectors. Given
the growth of the aging baby-boomers, the number employed in these sorts of
jobs will only increase with time.
How will I find out about
salaries for each of these professions in each zip code?
In the same way I was concerned about finding proper car prices, I
didn’t think it would be possible to get average salary information by zip code
for each profession.
Luckily for me, Google really is your friend and the site Indeed
appears to calculate the average salary for each zip code by profession too.
The results are shown below.
|
Job
|
State
|
Salary $
|
|
Physician
|
33401
(Palm Beach, Florida)
|
86000
|
|
Physician
|
33134
(Coral Gables, Miami)
|
82000
|
|
Physician
|
90210
(Beverly Hills, CA)
|
97000
|
|
Physician
|
92651
(Laguna Beach, CA)
|
83000
|
|
Physician
|
63005
(Chesterfield, MO)
|
86000
|
|
Physician
|
20847
(Rockville, MD)
|
108000
|
|
Nurse
|
33401
(Palm Beach, Florida)
|
65000
|
|
Nurse
|
33134
(Coral Gables, Miami)
|
61000
|
|
Nurse
|
90210
(Beverly Hills, CA)
|
72000
|
|
Nurse
|
92651
(Laguna Beach, CA)
|
62000
|
|
Nurse
|
63005
(Chesterfield, MO)
|
64000
|
|
Nurse
|
20847
(Rockville, MD)
|
80000
|
|
Retail Salesperson
|
33401
(Palm Beach, Florida)
|
52000
|
|
Retail Salesperson
|
33134
(Coral Gables, Miami)
|
49000
|
|
Retail Salesperson
|
90210
(Beverly Hills, CA)
|
57000
|
|
Retail Salesperson
|
92651
(Laguna Beach, CA)
|
49000
|
|
Retail Salesperson
|
63005
(Chesterfield, MO)
|
51000
|
|
Retail Salesperson
|
20847
(Rockville, MD)
|
64000
|
I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the physician pay. I
really thought that given the high profile physicians have, their pay would be
significantly higher than the other two. However, this is not the case. Had I
chosen a specialist doctor such as an oncologist or plastic surgeon, the salary
would have been significantly higher.
On reflection, however, I felt that it would be “cheating” to do this.
Added to which there are far fewer specialists than generalist such as
physicians.
Assumptions about the data
Additionally, I have ignored any other type of cost variable such as
housing or food. There may well be regional differences which would impact what
a person can spend on a car, but their disposable income and those
considerations are not included in this data analysis.
Now I have the data, how do I figure out the answer?
As with any analysis it is the construction of the dataset which takes
the longest. The steps I need to perform are
1)
Filter all of the car data to only include cars
from the years 2013-2015
2)
Find the average price for each car group by postcode
3)
Link the car group average price per postcode to
the salary of the worker by postcode.
*Here
I will assume that
a.
a physician will buy a premium car
b.
a nurse will buy a middle market
c.
a retail worker will buy an entry level car
4)
**Percentage cost = Car price / (salary * 5)
5)
Produce a bar graph of percentage costs paid per
worker and postcode
* Of course, some doctors will buy an entry level car and retail
salesperson may fork out for a premium vehicle, but this exercise is only show
the theoretical cost of a car to a worker.
** to simulate paying back the car over 5 years which is the current
norm
By merging the data in Trifacta and then putting all this data into
Tableau, I produced the following results
Retail Salesperson
Nurse
Physician
Conclusive results
From all of the above comparisons, the Mid-Atlantic is the cheapest
area to purchase a car irrespective of your job. For the entry level and
mid-range cars, it seems that the Mid-West is the most expensive place to
purchase your car if you work there.
However, the most interesting was the fact that the prestigious cars
appear to be the most expensive in California and Florida, with the peculiar
exception of the Mercedes in the Mid-West. This is counterintuitive to my
original thinking as I believed that there was a much higher percentage of
income spent on luxury cars in these locations and were most likely cheaper to
purchase as more of these cars were sold in those regions.
Inconclusive results
What I originally set out to prove, namely that a higher percentage of
people in South Florida and Southern California spend a higher percentage of
their income on their automobiles, does not appear true when the data is
analyzed.
Possible explanations About Car
Pricing
Given the higher wealth that is generally associated with southern
coastal states, perhaps the margins for premium vehicles are higher, simply
because they are more affordable.
However for the mid-level vehicles, it is possible that people value
space and comfort above status and knowing this, the mid-level cars are more
expensive.
References
Car loan length
Salaries
Car prices & Car Stuff
Employment populations
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Good Processes = Good Results
Quote of the day from Barry Ritholtz :
"We never really know what the source of a good outcome is; however, we have a high degree of confidence what the probabilities are for a good process. A strong process is a guarantee — not of outcome or results, but of the highest probability of obtaining desired results.1"
Good process correlates to good results where the outcome that we see in the headlines or paper could be absolute dumb luck.
"We never really know what the source of a good outcome is; however, we have a high degree of confidence what the probabilities are for a good process. A strong process is a guarantee — not of outcome or results, but of the highest probability of obtaining desired results.1"
Good process correlates to good results where the outcome that we see in the headlines or paper could be absolute dumb luck.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Zero to One a Must Read
One of the best books I've read that I recommend to other entrepreneurs is Peter Thiels Zero to One. The reason why I like this book so much is because it inspires outside the box critical thinking that is not the norm. When you follow the crowd you become a lemming heading for the ledge.
When you create something so game changing you're not re-inventing the wheel but rather changing the code from stop to go (0 to 1).
Many of Thiels investments and companies have done just that and is one of the many reasons for his immense success. A must read.
When you create something so game changing you're not re-inventing the wheel but rather changing the code from stop to go (0 to 1).
Many of Thiels investments and companies have done just that and is one of the many reasons for his immense success. A must read.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
My Own Social Bookmark
Bookmarking a great article to come back to: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/get-there/bah-humbug-to-ridiculous-year-end-financial-advice/2015/12/23/a7d43afa-a823-11e5-9b92-dea7cd4b1a4d_story.html
Barry always writes excellent pieces but this one mentions the most finite resource of all "Time". Something that I often talk about. If Tim Ferris only works 4 hours a week is he that much wealthier then the Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs working 90 hour weeks but making $10 Million a year?
We are equal in having 24 hours each day.
Have a great 2016
Barry always writes excellent pieces but this one mentions the most finite resource of all "Time". Something that I often talk about. If Tim Ferris only works 4 hours a week is he that much wealthier then the Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs working 90 hour weeks but making $10 Million a year?
We are equal in having 24 hours each day.
Have a great 2016
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Internet Marketing Course: Super Affiliate System from John Crestani
There are
literally hundreds of affiliate marketing systems out there available for you
to choose from. Today, I want to share
with you an affiliate system led by a friend of mine, John Crestani. Super
Affiliate System is Crestani’s personal affiliate system and course.
John is one of
the fastest risers in the Internet marketing industry and wants the same
success for you so he created a “no fluff” course that breaks his system down. I remember only a few short years ago sitting with John and friends at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, he has a mindset that is built for success and now he's sharing it with others.
John is a
fantastic marketer and an even better instructor. He has worked his way up the
ladder to where he is now. Just to show you some of John’s success in, John is
also the CEO of Nutryst, an affiliate network focused on promoting nutra and
health realated offers.
As for the Super
Affiliate System, here are some of the top reasons why you should consider
checking it out:
1.
One
of the biggest complaints people have with affiliate systems is their teacher neglects
to respond to comments and concerns. John’s Super Affiliate System has a
fantastic support team already set in place. Not only is there a lengthy
Frequently Asked Question section to hopefully answer any of your questions,
but also John and his team are very responsive. Simply put, John and his team
are running this course like a serious business, because it is a serious
business.
2.
Upon
signing up for the Super Affiliate System you are enrolled in an extensive twelve-week
training course. This course has material geared toward all levels of Internet
marketers. Regardless if you are new to the industry or have years of
experience, this course is inclusive of all information necessary to be
successful when it comes to affiliate marketing and mastering paid traffic. All
of the lessons are available online and at your own convenience so you can
learn and apply the knowledge you’ll be acquiring at your own pace.
3.
The
Super Affiliate System has John Crestani at the helm. The reason this is
beneficial is because John has been in this industry for years now and is
personally dominating the affiliate space. With those years of experience come
countless training modules developed from years of trial and error based
efforts. John wants you to be successful, there’s no denying that. The
trainings contained within the course, his knowledgeable support team, as well
as the community he’s created give this course a competitive edge in the
market.
4.
The
lessons for Super Affiliate System are methodically structured, helping you to
progress gradually. John is also the instructor. This means that you not only
get used to his teaching style, but you get to learn right from the master
himself.
There’s no doubt
that utilizing the Super Affiliate System will make you a better affiliate or
media buyer if you’re looking to sharpen your paid traffic skills.
With a tried and
true Internet marketer leading this course, you will definitely be learning the
best information you can get your hands on.
If you’re interested
in learning more about the Super Affiliate System, please go to http://superaffiliatesystem.com/.
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