The Choices We Have
Issue #2021
- WEALTHY: What would you do with an average return of 216%? (Charles Delvalle)
- HEALTHY: 4 reasons to say goodbye to well-done meat (Dr. Al Sears)
- WISE: Eric Allenbaugh on making choices
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Your idea of "fun" could be detrimental to your life (Michael Masterson)
- Feedback Friday: Getting Scammed in Park City
- It’s Good to Know… about diamond substitutes
- Add "abecedarian" to your vocabulary
Imagine Knowing of a Casino Where the Dealer Tipped His Hand Before You Made Your Move and Didn’t Care How Many Times You Beat Him.
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ETR Insider Report: Discovering a Winner
By Charles Delvalle
As MaryEllen (ETR’s publisher) handed me a white postal folder that weighed about five pounds, she said, "Charles, that’s Rusty McDougal’s natural-resource track record. Can you verify and document all the trades he made from 2000 up to 2005?"
Rusty is the Thursday contributor to our Investor’s Daily Edge newsletter, and going through all his trades was a big job. What made it an even bigger job was Rusty’s trading method. In any one stock, he may have seven different buy prices, in different years, with different share amounts, and scattered sales.
After two grueling weeks of checking with Rusty and his brokerage to verify that the trades were accurate, my results were mind-boggling. While 1,000 percent returns may be a pipe dream for the average investor, in the past five years Rusty has done better than 1,000 percent on three of his trades. He has also picked winning trades about 77 percent of the time… and get this: His average winning trade has gotten a return of 216 percent!
Needless to say, when I reported back to MaryEllen, she called Rusty immediately to lock him (and his keen eye for picking winners) into doing a trading service with us.
The service will consist of one monthly recommendation (a junior natural-resource company with ultra-high profit potential), weekly updates, and flash "buy" and "sell" alerts. Best of all, you don’t have to wait much longer to subscribe. We’re launching Rusty’s brand-new service in April.
Watch for it!
[Ed. Note: Charles Delvalle is a contributing editor to ETR's Investor's Daily Edge newsletter and a regular contributor to INCOME. INCOME lets you in on the safest high-dividend-paying companies, with the goal of providing you with a total return (dividends plus capital gains) of at least 14 percent per year.]
"Every choice moves us closer to or farther away from something. Where are your choices taking your life? What do your behaviors demonstrate that you are saying yes or no to in life?"
Eric Allenbaugh
Notes From Michael Masterson’s Blog: The Choices We Have
Now that our last child is about to leave home, K and I are talking about getting television service. For about 20 years, we have been without TV. The idea was that our children would become better readers without the distraction – and that objective was achieved. All three of our boys are voracious and skillful readers.
So now, as empty nesters, we are thinking that it would be kind of fun to watch some shows together – to spend an hour after dinner, sitting next to one another, laughing at the same things.
To test this hypothesis, we jimmy-rigged an antenna connection for the set that used to play only DVDs, and we spent a few evenings watching it.
The results of that experiment were mixed. There was something wonderful about watching those programs together – the double pleasure of the experience itself and knowing that your mate is "getting it" too. But when it was over, we found ourselves feeling like we used to when we watched television – which is to say a little sad and empty inside. As if we were mourning the time we’d lost.
The other night, we watched a science program together, a documentary about insects. Suddenly, we were having the experience we had hoped to have – sharing something that was both entertaining and illuminating.
That got me thinking about how people spend their recreational time – how much time they devote to it, the things they do, and whether the time they spend is spent wisely.
Broadly speaking, there are four kinds of activities that we engage in: working, sleeping, eating, and relaxing. And it seems logical to assert that – up to a certain point of mental or physical exhaustion – the more hours you spend working, the more successful you will be.
That said, we must acknowledge that all work and no play makes Jack a dull… or cranky… boy. We do need some recreation. The question is: How much?
And the answer to that is pretty simple. Just ask yourself how far you want to go in life. How smart you want to be. How high you want to rise in your industry. How much money you want to make. What accomplishments you want to achieve.
Determine how ambitious you are… and then find out how many hours of work were done per day by people who have already done what you want to do. Unless you are exceptionally gifted (or exceptionally slow), chances are you will have to work about as hard (i.e., as many hours) as they did.
Take the number of hours you sleep and eat and add to that the number of hours that successful people in your industry typically work. Subtract that from 24, and you will be left with the number of hours you can safely devote to recreation.
But there is another question that must be asked: Does it make any difference what kind of recreational activities you engage in? During your down time, does it matter whether you are sitting in front of the boob tube watching Jerry Springer or lifting weights or playing a musical instrument?
Broadly speaking, there are three ways you can occupy yourself during down time. You can amuse yourself with activities that, though fun, are harmful (like getting drunk). You can busy yourself with mindless distractions (like junky novels). Or you can choose to do something that requires a bit more energy on your part but will give you both a high degree of pleasure and the knowledge that you have somehow improved yourself (like practicing yoga).
It seems to me that whether it is the work we do, the sports we play, the vacations we take… we have the same three choices. We can do something that:
- Damages us in some way
- Improves us somehow
- Leaves us more or less the same
Look at almost any activity, and you will see what I’m talking about. In the books you read. In the friends you keep. In the jobs you take. You name it. Some choices will improve you and some will damage you… but most will fall somewhere in the neutral zone: They won’t harm you… but they won’t help you either.
If we fill our lives with mediocre experiences – does that make sense?
Every day, we are given dozens of choices – from which foods to eat to which parts of the newspaper to read to which words to say in any given conversation. Many of those choices seem to be insignificant, but when you string them all together they determine the quality of our lives.
At the lowest end of the scale, there’s the person who spends his time using drugs, watching television, and prostituting himself or stealing to pay for his addiction. At the highest end of the scale – well, I don’t really know who that is. But when I think of rich guys in limos or holy men on mountains… that just doesn’t work.
Most of us live in the middle ground, mixing quality experiences with neutral ones while trying not to harm ourselves … but doing so anyway. We recognize that some of the choices we make are better than others, but we don’t always have the willpower to make the better ones.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? The best choices are often the hardest to choose… because they require more of our energy. The worst choices are usually the easiest to refuse… because we are frightened by them. But when we have experienced them and found them pleasurable, they have the greatest pull on us. The neutral choices – the actions that do little more than get the job done – are the most popular because they are relatively easy and benign. They don’t require much energy and they don’t leave us hurting.
If there is one thing that life gives us all in equal portion, it is the hours of the day. We can’t determine (with any certainty) how many hours will be allotted to us, but we can decide how to spend those that we have.
Think about it over the weekend. I’ll have more to say on this subject Monday.
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: To read more of Michael's unedited, uncensored (and sometimes unexpected) ruminations, check out his blog here.]
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Enjoy Your Steak Medium-Rare
By Al Sears, MD
Do you like your steak red in the middle? I do. Conventional wisdom says that’s "dangerous," so let me put your mind at ease. The idea that it’s "healthier" to cook meat until it’s dry and tasteless is not based on scientific fact. Overcooking denatures protein, breaks down vitamins, and removes nutrients.
Many high-temperature cooking methods trigger a chemical change called glycation (the binding of glucose molecules to protein). Glycation is what happens to the proteins in your body as you age, and it’s the same process that turns a turkey’s skin brown and crispy when you cook it.
The result of glycation on meat is a spoiled protein assembly with glycotoxins. As the glycotoxins accumulate in your cells, they send out chemical signals. Your body responds by producing inflammation that can cause arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
You can reduce the number of glycotoxins in your food by cooking it more slowly at a lower heat – in other words, by steaming, stewing, boiling, and poaching instead of frying, broiling, and microwaving. Marinating meat well before you cook it will also lessen glycation.
[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor's Heart Cure, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]
Feedback Friday: Getting Scammed in Park City
In ETR #2009, Michael Masterson shared a bad experience he had at the ritzy Hotel Park City. Though he saw a lower room rate advertised online and politely asked for it, the hotel refused to make the adjustment. Lots of readers wrote in with their thoughts. Here are a few of their responses…
"I love the way you blasted Hotel Park City. Some people (and many corporations) have way too much attitude and need to be brought down a notch or two. Good for you!!!"
- Marc R. Williams
Lapine, AL
"I know how you feel as a consumer with your experience at that hotel in Utah. You suspect that they were not really fully booked when you made your reservation. Maybe they were. Maybe they weren’t. You just felt ripped-off because they were now advertising a lower rate than you paid and wouldn’t lower your rate.
"A hotel room, or airfare for that matter, is a perishable item. Once that plane takes off or that night goes by, they can never generate that revenue. If you want to avoid your ‘problem’ again, why don’t you just ‘name your own price’ and bid through Priceline or Hotwire. I’ve had great experience with Priceline the three times I’ve tried it.
"But why just gripe about paying too much for a hotel and calling them ‘rip-offs’? What about any other consumer product you use or purchase? What if you purchase a car and the price comes down a month later? Are you going back to that dealership? How about that suit you bought a few weeks or months ago? How about that head of lettuce you bought at Publix last week? Pretty ridiculous, right?
"If you could afford to pay full price to stay at a beautiful hotel in Park City, Utah, consider yourself blessed. And stop whining!"
- Steve Fields
Boca Raton, FL
"I was glad to get Michael’s e-mail about getting scammed at Hotel Park City. I printed it and sent a copy to the hotel explaining that I was glad I read it before booking their hotel for our family vacation in Park City this summer. We only live 3 hours from there and we go down to Utah every year."
- Mont Howard
Shelley, ID
It’s Good to Know: About Diamond Substitutes
Move over cubic zirconia, moissanite has become a popular, relatively cheap, and realistic substitute for diamonds. Moissanite, also known as silicon carbide, occurs very rarely in nature. So most moissanite used in jewelry was probably created in the lab. Even trained jewelers can have trouble distinguishing it from diamonds.
(Source: HowStuffWorks.com)
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Word to the Wise: Abecedarian
An "abecedarian" (ay-bee-see-DARE-ee-un) – from the first four letters of the alphabet – is someone who is learning the alphabet. Thus, a beginner in any field.
Example (as used by Lisa Jo Sagolla in Back Stage magazine): "While much of the work resembled abecedarian attempts of a novice choreographer, ‘Duet,’ sensitively danced by Jennifer A. Cooper and William Petroni, is surprisingly sophisticated in its careful deployment of formal thematic manipulations in the service of emotional expression."
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Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
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