full time private investors who left their day job

[Hielko]

To make money with investing you need a significant starting capital. That's something few people have. With poker you need just a little bit of money and a lot of hours.

[ukvalueinvestment]

Errr, what annual return on capital are you suggesting is possible with poker (and on what capital base)

[SwedishValue]

It's really not measured that way and it is not relevant. It's sort of like asking "what is your hourly rate from investments?". In that case it would depend on your capital base, and in the poker example it depends on your edge per hand against the other player/-s, and how many hands you play. You could look at the money you had within your poker account and compare it at the start of the year with what you had at the end of the year I guess, but it's really not relevant as a good player could turn 1 000$ into 100 000$ with extremely low risk/volatility during 2007 (I don't think this is possible today). Keeping all that money in your account was not needed to continue playing, so most good players (including me) withdrew a lot during the "boom years".

 

You can think of poker as a "time arbitrage", like Pabrai discusses in his Dhando Investing book. This arbitrage has been closing for a long time now. But I guess I'm wildly off-topic now.

[ukvalueinvestment]

I disagree somewhat with what you've said in the first paragraph.  But I'll let someone else disagree with you, if they do.

 

Your second paragraph interests me. Why do you think time arbitrage is closing?

[SwedishValue]

Any profession which gives a hourly wage of a couple of hundred dollars with minimal thought required will obviously attract more people to it, driving competition up and expected hourly wage down. Also, it's very similar to any other ecosystem - the weakest players will lose their money first, and then there will be weaker players with higher skill compared with the precious weak players etc.

 

I really don't understand what there is to disagree with in my first paragraph.

[moody202]

Where do you see wage inflation except is some niches where there are few folks?  I see automation/internet removing costs lowering wages in sales jobs.  So I see more jobs being eliminated or wage declining versus increasing.  In my business we are seeing some price pressures and I think if you ask most folks that still is the case. 

 

Packer

 

My theory is that wages are local markets and are facing competition from globalization.  Why would anyone pay someone a high wage to someone when they can pay a lower wage to someone else to do the same job?  Technological advances are only making working remotely and globally easier.  The wage differential between developing and developed markets will continue to narrow over time.

 

I do not think I am saying anything insightful, but I feel developed markets will continue to face wage headwinds even after a recovery.

 

 

If it was that easy to replace jobs with cheaper personal offshore...most of us would un-employed by now!

 

Yes, but it is easier to work remotely now. And aside from the very top schools, you don't think the gap between american and global education is shrinking?

 

I'm sure people working Berkshire in the 40s thought they were irreplaceable too because they were just so skilled.

 

Higher education in America is still one of the best.

 

Yes, technology makes it easier to work remotely but there is still no substitute for a local person that understands the culture and how business is done in here.  Also -- It is usually not a 1 to 1 replacement offshore. Generally it takes more than one offshore person to do the work of one person in US. Call centers maybe an exception to this.

 

Just look at the amount of unfilled technology jobs out there and what they pay. Offshore is not killing these jobs, just taking the more basic and mundane one's offshore.

[gary17]

Western education will be unmatched by Asian education for a very, very long time.  The biggest difference is, in my view, western education teaches creativity and problem solving not generally taught in Asia.

[LC]

As well as the ability to build and nourish a professional network.

[mcliu]

The knowledge gap is definitely shrinking because of the internet.

 

For example, I'm taking Dan Ariely's course on Irrationality on Coursera and there's tons of people from different countries. You don't need to go to Duke University or even be in the U.S. anymore to have access to high-quality education.

[gary17]

Creativity and problem solving skills are also very much related to the culture... I agree the "knowledge" is spreading but I still don't think you can deliver the culture of creative minds, problem solving, and thinking out side the box that many Asian institutes don't teach. There may be few. Very few...

[Ham Hockers]

The knowledge gap is definitely shrinking because of the internet.

 

For example, I'm taking Dan Ariely's course on Irrationality on Coursera and there's tons of people from different countries. You don't need to go to Duke University or even be in the U.S. anymore to have access to high-quality education.

 

I'm taking that too.

 

Or more accurately, I've signed up to take it but haven't started yet ...

[moody202]

Western education will be unmatched by Asian education for a very, very long time.  The biggest difference is, in my view, western education teaches creativity and problem solving not generally taught in Asia.

 

Agree. If only one could combine elements of primary education from the East with creativity, problem solving and higher education from the west....will make for a great education. Or if nothing else, just push the kids harder in school. Schools these days are afraid to push the kids in education which flies in face of how often time the coaches get the athletes to perform better...pushing them hard...to the breaking point.

[ukvalueinvestment]

Read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, if you haven't already.  Basically the reason Asians are better at scientific subjects, on average, is because they work harder and spend more time at school.  When this was replicated in a poor area of New York (I think it was called a KIPP school), the kids had fantastic results.  In the UK, kids have about 16 weeks holiday per year.  When you think about it, this makes no sense.  There's no particular reason why kids shouldn't spent much more time learning and practicing.

[stahleyp]

Read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, if you haven't already.  Basically the reason Asians are better at scientific subjects, on average, is because they work harder and spend more time at school.  When this was replicated in a poor area of New York (I think it was called a KIPP school), the kids had fantastic results.  In the UK, kids have about 16 weeks holiday per year.  When you think about it, this makes no sense.  There's no particular reason why kids shouldn't spent much more time learning and practicing.

 

Outliers ia great book. However, I look at achievement in a couple ways. First, obviously, is being able to do well on tests. The other is more from a creative viewpoint. Innovation tends to happen on the latter. If we're so focused on the "science" of something, we often miss on on the "art." If we focus on the rigidity of processes it can make us miss the big picture.

[ukvalueinvestment]

The average graduate with great science (maths, engineering etc) skills will always find a job. The creative graduate may be brilliant and do something wonderful but may struggle otherwise.  I want my kids to have the rigorous academic base and then be freed up to do something innovative, with their academics to fall back on. 

[stahleyp]

There's nothing wrong with that, uk. I just think it's wrong to think that the science focused mentality is the always the right one for the betterment of the world. The ones that are pretty regimented (myself included) rarely do things of great consequence because we've been trained to think in certain ways.

 

 

[moody202]

Read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, if you haven't already.  Basically the reason Asians are better at scientific subjects, on average, is because they work harder and spend more time at school.  When this was replicated in a poor area of New York (I think it was called a KIPP school), the kids had fantastic results.  In the UK, kids have about 16 weeks holiday per year.  When you think about it, this makes no sense.  There's no particular reason why kids shouldn't spent much more time learning and practicing.

 

Outliers ia great book. However, I look at achievement in a couple ways. First, obviously, is being able to do well on tests. The other is more from a creative viewpoint. Innovation tends to happen on the latter. If we're so focused on the "science" of something, we often miss on on the "art." If we focus on the rigidity of processes it can make us miss the big picture.

 

Agreed. Said another way, success is a combination of traditional IQ and Emotional Intelligence (EI). The schools are great at focusing on IQ but don't focus on EI. We see plenty of people with high IQ that don't achieve too much success.

[SharperDingaan]

Its easiest to think of education as a pyramid; reading/writing, foundation knowledge, factual recall, application.

 

World over, reading/writing is widely recognized as the basic minimum.

 

Foundation knowledge is the high school math, sciences, arts foundation required for university/college entrance. Problem is - it has been taught the same way for 50+ years, there is a culture not to allow failure, & there is zero recognition for maturity. If you come from somewhere not first world you actually have an advantage (life is harsher), but it is handicapped by local condition (cant learn if you're hungry or supporting your family). 50 years ago was the 1960's - & the start of the various social revolutions.

 

Bachelor degrees are still taught the same way; factual recall of theory from textbooks, & make believe attempts to mimic real world by case study. Cheating, & plagiarism, is endemic - & the universal institutional response is criminalization, versus actually hearing the message. Gaming, cheating, copying, facts lookup, etc. is simply life imposing itself - the skill is in applying what you learnt, & we teach you to game the system. Not a bad thing, but not really the intent either.

 

When you graduate, you are magically supposed to be able to apply what you learnt. But just how, exactly, if you were never taught how to do it? But we did teach you - it was how to game the system!; a lesson the financial types of 2003 through 2008 appear to have learnt very well!! Unintended consequences.

 

Different cultures do the application differently, & there in lies their comparative advantages. And you can change those comparative advantages by simply putting someone on a plane & sending them elsewhere for an extended period (ie: to get a university degree in a foreign country).

 

SD