Month: May 2017

The Choice

As we grow from boy to man,
And when we’re still in school,
We are given opportunities
To be kind or be cruel.

To stand up for a bullied kid
Or join the taunting crowd.
To keep our hurtful words inside
Or shout them right out loud.

A lad can be forgiven
If he sometimes plays the fool
And steals some cheap attention
By doing something cruel.

But if that boy has any heart
He will begin to soften.
He might still be a jerk sometimes,
But thankfully, not often.

And gradually he makes the choice
His elders hoped he would,
To reject abject selfishness
And try to do some good.

A classmate goes the other way
And choosing to resent,
He glorifies his hatred
And becomes president.

  • Jim Hagarty

Ya, What Would He Know?

By Jim Hagarty
Non Financial Writer
2014

I’ve been reading a lot about Warren Buffett lately and am part way through his biography now. What an interesting man. At his peak, he was worth about $60 billion but he gave half that away and will donate most of the other half before he dies.

What I find hilarious is the number of newspaper finance experts who like to put old Warren down. The headline on one of those recent stories read, Why I broke up with Warren Buffett. It is funny because, as far as I know, none of these newspaper guys is a billionaire. I worked for newspapers for many years and there is no journalist anywhere that I know if who can even count to a billion.

Still, apparently, Buffett doesn’t know much. His big failure was his rejection of tech stocks when the tech boom hit. But when the boom went bust, he survived just fine. His reasoning? There used to be 3,000 car companies in the U.S. Now there are three. Good luck picking the right three out of 3,000. He always went with good companies with good track records that he knew would last.

The other thing is Buffett is upfront about his net worth, about his successes and about his losses. None of the finance writers I have ever read say a word about their own net worth or experiences in the stock market or business world. Following them is kind of like taking flying lessons from people who have never been off the ground,