Luck, Risk and Avoiding Losers w/ Howard Marks

We have a motto - if we avoid the losers the winners take care of themselves.

...You can't tell the quality of a decision from the outcome...

Risk is the probability of bad outcomes, but bad outcomes = loss AND gains that you miss out on. Don't forget about the latter.

If you think the same as everybody else, you’ll take the same actions as everybody else. If you take the same actions as everybody else, you’ll have the same performance as everybody else.

Our emotions conspire at every turn to make us do the wrong thing

We get a lot more from our work than just our income

...In this Rising income inequality, the people who have capital or technical education skills are doing very well, and the people who don't have those things are doing very badly.

...In this Rising income inequality, the people who have capital or technical education skills are doing very well, and the people who don't have those things are doing very badly.

The way you become a superior investor is to look at things, and see other things people don’t see

I think luck is a real thing and it's important and it's inherently unfair, but that's life

People who are lucky should thank their luck, acknowledge it, and revel in it.

To be a an above average investor, number one - you have to think different from the crowd. But number two - you have to be right.

If you think about everything the same way everybody else does, you can't have an exceptional return

Insulating kids from choices (or making mistakes) is not doing them a favor

We can't just invest on the basis of the probability distribution and the expected value. We also have to take our own tolerances and predilections into account.

The greatest contributor to global economic maximization is globalization.

Howard Marks explains how tariffs work

“It’s ridiculous that we use the same word to describe what a CEO does and what a road worker does - we say work but clearly they're not very much in common.

Risk is the probability of bad outcomes

You should not insulate your kids from the discussion of money

Mistakes happen in the investing world, you WON'T be right 100% of the time

My guess is that this economic recovery in the U.S. will set a record for the longest lasting recovery in history

Risk exists because the future is a range of possibilities

Risk means more things can happen than will happen

Being wrong is inevitable and normal, not some terrible tragedy

On average, the U.S. economy grows 2% every year

A cool fact - You can "live" in a state for a maximum of 181 days of the year without having to pay taxes there

If you ask someone what percentage of the world they think lives in extreme poverty, they’d give you a much higher number that the actual value

Investing is a funny activity - It's really incredibly easy to be average

To be great - dare to be different, dare to be wrong, and dare to look stupid

You’re not helping your kids if you give them a credit card and pay the bill for them every month