Tag: behavioral-finance

Word Count - 802 words

Approximate Reading Time - 3 and a half minutes

Recently I answered a few questions for an author working on piece about gratitude in the workplace.  Gratitude has a huge impact on business culture, and I thought the topic was spot on for a blog, especially leading up to this season of gratitude – Thanksgiving. Read on for a few thoughts and observations from the last 50 or so years.

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Lord Henry Wotton, A Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

While Wilde’s masterpiece was published in 1890, there’s much about it that feels prescient today. This quote in particular calls into question the futility of yearning for the possession of material things. Sticking with the theme of 19th-century paragons, it was in 1899 that economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” in his most famous work, The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen’s concept can be illustrated by the desire to drive a luxury car rather than an economy car. Though both serve the exact same function, the former calls to attention the apparent affluence of the driver. Both Wilde and Veblen would likely agree that the price of this good exceeds its actual value.

Earlier this month, Jason Zweig wrote an insightful article about Target Date Funds (TDF), which in the last year surpassed the one trillion-dollar mark in assets under management. In the piece, he provided some background on these instruments and how they have been perceived in the market. He concluded by describing the current equity exposure across some of the prominent TDF providers.

Vanilla is a fascinating ingredient. It is one of the most popular flavors worldwide and is incredibly common for use in baked goods. The process of creating vanilla flavoring is time-consuming and labor-intensive intensive, which is why in its purest form it is also one of the most expensive spices in the world.

Vanilla’s widespread use and high value alone are not what makes it interesting. Take vanilla and add it to a cake mix and it enhances the flavor, turning an ordinary result into something great. But if you first bake the cake and then drizzle even the highest quality vanilla over it, you have effectively ruined the cake.