Saturday, July 27, 2013

Vince Young may have possessions seized to pay off $1.7 million loan | Shutdown Corner - Yahoo! Sports


It is always sad and shocking to see people with money burn through it all.  Such is the case of Vince Young.  

Vince Young may have possessions seized to pay off $1.7 million loan | Shutdown Corner - Yahoo! Sports:

"Young's fall has been precipitous....Young signed a contract in July 2006 that, in theory, could have set him up for life. The No. 3 overall pick of the 2006 NFL draft, Young's six-year contract with Tennessee was worth just over $48 million, had a maximum value of $57.79 million, and contained $25.74 million in guaranteed money. Of that initial contract, Young earned over $30 million, as well as another $4 million from Philadelphia in 2011. He'd tried to catch on with Buffalo before the 2012 season, but Bills officials hinted that Young's financial troubles, and the concern about their effects on his psyche, were part of the reason he was cut."

Interesting to see that the Modigliani and Miller assumption of operations being independent of finances was broken here in the eyes of the Bills.  

How do you go through that much money?  One way is to (ALLEGEDLY) throw yourself a $300,000 birthday party. 

That is taking Jensen's Free Cash Flow problem hypothesis to the extreme!

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Just How Generous Are Detroit's Worker Pensions for Retirees? - Yahoo! Finance

This is somewhat surprising:

Just How Generous Are Detroit's Worker Pensions for Retirees? - Yahoo! Finance:

"...basic takeaway was that [Detroit's] pension system itself was not overly generous," said Jean-Pierre Aubry, assistant director of State and Local Research at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research."

Friday, July 19, 2013

Great lessons from 25IQ (and Daniel Kahneman) | 25iq

 Great stuff! 

Great stuff!  A Dozen Things I’ve Learned About Investing from Daniel Kahneman | 25iq:

 A Dozen Things I’ve Learned About Investing from Daniel Kahneman

1. “Many individual investors lose consistently by trading, an achievement that a dart-throwing chimp could not match.” Leonard the Wonder Monkey will beat a muppet in an investing contest. Not only will muppets lose to a dart throwing monkey, they will do worse than chance would dictate, especially after fees because of certain behavioral biases.
Read the whole list:  here.

Monday, July 08, 2013

Brain sets prices with emotional value

Brain sets prices with emotional value:

Not super surprised by this one:

"...after a series of experiments in which subjects were asked to modify how they felt about something either positively or negatively, the Duke group is arguing that emotional and economic calculations are more closely related than brain scientists had realized. The study appears July 3 in the Journal of Neuroscience."

earlier in article:

"You might be falling in love with that new car, but you probably wouldn't pay as much for it if you could resist the feeling. Researchers at Duke University who study how the brain values things—a field called neuroeconomics—have found that your feelings about something and the value you put on it are calculated similarly in a specific area of the brain."

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Ritholtz: You Can “Eat Cat Food Tacos In Retirement,” Or You Can Do This… | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance

Ritholtz: You Can “Eat Cat Food Tacos In Retirement,” Or You Can Do This… | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance:
"In a recent column in The Washington Post, Ritholtz offered advice to investors who can’t get the memories of 2008 out of their minds and missed out on the massive rally since the March 2009 lows. In the accompanying video, he summarizes the advice for taking emotions out of investing:

  • Have a plan.
  • Execute it faithfully.
  • Be diversified.
  • Contribute regularly.
  • Max out tax-deferred accounts.
  • Be an asset allocator.
  • Think long-term."