Instead of using Winzip, which costs money, I use 7-zip, which is free and better. 7-Zip can create and open zip files but its own 7z file format gets better compression and is faster as well. Plus during encryption it uses AES256, which is safe enough for the United States Defense Agencies.
Over at Computer Forensics World, someone is trying to break a 7-Zip file because he suspects that there might be child pornography inside. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for the reliability of 7-zip encryption, he doesn't seem too successful.
15 September 2007
11 September 2007
Conspiracy Files: Oklahoma City Bombings
The official story says that Timothy McVeigh worked alone to blow up a government building, killing hundreds of people including children who were in a nearby daycare center. Some people, however, believe that although the government didn't actually blow up the building (as conspiracy theorists say they did for the 9/11 incident) they knew that McVeigh and his neo-Nazi friends were up to something but didn't do enough to stop the bombings, and so there was a coverup. The video is below. It's about one hour long.
Shares or Property?
Link: Shares or Property: What's the Better Investment?
The site above is excellent at giving the pros and cons of shares and property. Really for diversification you should invest in both. Shares really are the winner in everything except lower borrowing costs. If you have property you can borrow cheaper. I know that you can use a house to secure a loan but what I want to know is whether putting units in a property trust is as good or whether I need to put down the title to an actual house.
Further Reading:
Residential investment property or listed property trusts?
Property Trusts or Residential Property?
The site above is excellent at giving the pros and cons of shares and property. Really for diversification you should invest in both. Shares really are the winner in everything except lower borrowing costs. If you have property you can borrow cheaper. I know that you can use a house to secure a loan but what I want to know is whether putting units in a property trust is as good or whether I need to put down the title to an actual house.
Further Reading:
Residential investment property or listed property trusts?
Property Trusts or Residential Property?
How Housewives Encourage Sexism
Based on observation of the labor market, it seems as if women have a tendency to drop work and spend time taking care of the children, cleaning the house, etc.
If women have a bias towards these traditional tasks, their work will suffer. This can be seen in statistics showing that women get paid less than men. However, it's worse then that. Because women are more likely to quit, firms will discriminate against them because they are worried about whether the woman is dedicated to the job.
For example, suppose I have a man and woman applying for a job. Both we'll assume are equal in everything like experience and education. But the man simply by being a man is less likely to become a housewife and quit to have babies. Therefore, for the sake of avoiding the inconvenience of having to hire maternity replacements, firms will discriminate against women.
Discriminating against women is fair if women as a whole choose to become submissive housewives. By choosing to be housewives, women voluntarily sacrifice higher wages. But what doesn't sit well with me is the effect this discrimination is having on innocent women who don't want to live traditionally. What about the females who are dedicated to their careers? Unfortunately, employers cannot ask a woman to sign a contract forbidding her from having a baby (because of anti-discrimination laws). Therefore, the employer cannot distinguish between career woman and housewife woman. What happens then is that employers will discriminate against all women. The selfishness of the housewife has encouraged employer sexism and has dragged down the innocent career woman in the process.
If women have a bias towards these traditional tasks, their work will suffer. This can be seen in statistics showing that women get paid less than men. However, it's worse then that. Because women are more likely to quit, firms will discriminate against them because they are worried about whether the woman is dedicated to the job.
For example, suppose I have a man and woman applying for a job. Both we'll assume are equal in everything like experience and education. But the man simply by being a man is less likely to become a housewife and quit to have babies. Therefore, for the sake of avoiding the inconvenience of having to hire maternity replacements, firms will discriminate against women.
Discriminating against women is fair if women as a whole choose to become submissive housewives. By choosing to be housewives, women voluntarily sacrifice higher wages. But what doesn't sit well with me is the effect this discrimination is having on innocent women who don't want to live traditionally. What about the females who are dedicated to their careers? Unfortunately, employers cannot ask a woman to sign a contract forbidding her from having a baby (because of anti-discrimination laws). Therefore, the employer cannot distinguish between career woman and housewife woman. What happens then is that employers will discriminate against all women. The selfishness of the housewife has encouraged employer sexism and has dragged down the innocent career woman in the process.
09 September 2007
Is George Bush an Idiot?
The guys at MSNBC talk about Bush's problems with expressing himself and whether this suggests that the President is just plain dumb. Being inarticulate may not be the same thing as being dumb.
Review of Bush Family Fortunes (2003)
Link: Bush Family Fortunes (2003)
This is an hour-long documentary from Greg Palast about the wealthy Bush family, a family whose interests in politics is driven by their business interests. They use their money to buy their way into politics and once in politics they use their political connections to further their business interests.
If this documentary is true, then there is a lot of corruption in America at the moment.
This is an hour-long documentary from Greg Palast about the wealthy Bush family, a family whose interests in politics is driven by their business interests. They use their money to buy their way into politics and once in politics they use their political connections to further their business interests.
If this documentary is true, then there is a lot of corruption in America at the moment.
08 September 2007
The Problem with Australian Shares
I invest in Vanguard and have all my money in the Australian shares index fund that tracks the S&P/ASX 300. I am worried that I am underdiversified because the top Australian companies tend to be resource and finance companies.
Bogle says you should invest only in American firms, but that is tantamount to a religious person believing only his religion is right because he was born and bred that way. It's emotional reasoning based on instincts of trust and familiarity. I remember reading an article at DFA (Dimensional Funds Advisors) by Eugene Fama that claims that if indexers were serious about applying correct weights they would invest 60 per cent of their wealth overseas and 40 per cent in America, but most people irrationally invest in their own country. Investing in your own country can be rational if investing in a foreign country is more expensive, but more on average it is not and if it is the costs differences are negligible.
Vanguard Australia offers LifeStrategy Funds that invest in multiple areas. The High Growth Fund invests in about 40% Australian shares, 20% International Shares, 20% property trusts, 3% emerging markets, and so on. The fees are slightly higher if you are investing under $100,000 but over that the fees are no different to those funds that track only Australian shares. What I want to know is whether these LifeStrategy Funds are in the spirit of Bogleism. They are better diversified, but the 40% invested in Australian shares is arbitrary and selected by the experts at Vanguard. This then is similar to active investing. The whole point of indexing is to remove human judgment of stock selection and market timing and to establish rule of law instead. However, these LifeStrategy funds seem to encourage human judgment in how much to assign to different indexes, e.g. how much should you put into emerging markets? How is this any different to stock picking, which is active management? If indexing is to be taken to the logical extreme then wouldn't we have to index the whole world?
I have asked this question at Wisebread.
Bogle says you should invest only in American firms, but that is tantamount to a religious person believing only his religion is right because he was born and bred that way. It's emotional reasoning based on instincts of trust and familiarity. I remember reading an article at DFA (Dimensional Funds Advisors) by Eugene Fama that claims that if indexers were serious about applying correct weights they would invest 60 per cent of their wealth overseas and 40 per cent in America, but most people irrationally invest in their own country. Investing in your own country can be rational if investing in a foreign country is more expensive, but more on average it is not and if it is the costs differences are negligible.
Vanguard Australia offers LifeStrategy Funds that invest in multiple areas. The High Growth Fund invests in about 40% Australian shares, 20% International Shares, 20% property trusts, 3% emerging markets, and so on. The fees are slightly higher if you are investing under $100,000 but over that the fees are no different to those funds that track only Australian shares. What I want to know is whether these LifeStrategy Funds are in the spirit of Bogleism. They are better diversified, but the 40% invested in Australian shares is arbitrary and selected by the experts at Vanguard. This then is similar to active investing. The whole point of indexing is to remove human judgment of stock selection and market timing and to establish rule of law instead. However, these LifeStrategy funds seem to encourage human judgment in how much to assign to different indexes, e.g. how much should you put into emerging markets? How is this any different to stock picking, which is active management? If indexing is to be taken to the logical extreme then wouldn't we have to index the whole world?
I have asked this question at Wisebread.
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