Sociocultural issues meet economics

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Did you follow my advice and spend every morning 30 to 60 seconds thinking about something positive? If so, what was the effect?

Now, last week I gave you an insight into some of my global sociocultural points of view and proposed to publish an interview with a pension fund manager for this week. The interview was conducted but the time schedule was a bit aggressive and I am not quite ready to publish the interview yet. Hopefully by the end of next week I will be and may deliver on my promise.

I have been receiving very thoughtful and interesting feedback to my last weekly mail and thus today, would like to pick the feedback of two of my readers and share Masha’s and Anton’s thoughts with you.

When thinking of current global economic policies, Masha has a picture in her mind. It is the picture of a curved (concave and convex) mirror. The sort of thing you would see in amusement parks. When you stand in front of it, reality gets distorted. I quite like that metaphor and I totally see her point, only that instead of the mirror we have some of today’s media channels and research reports by banks and brokers.

Anton’s feedback was touching on three points.

Firstly on his statement that uninterrupted growth is not possible, something I would easily agree to, second he cited a quote by Hannah Arendt: „Politics is the professional representation of vested interests”, again I can’t really argue against that one and thirdly he mentioned that we cannot borrow our way to prosperity (how I love that one!) but rather that prosperity requires sacrifices – more specifically, to get something of value tomorrow (including a better life overall) we need to give up something today (time, sleep, money, etc.). This last statement is so true and the ones who know me well, will know that I have a serious problem with today’s culture of “instant gratification”. It just doesn’t work. I always use the same metaphor. If a farmer wants vegetables, he needs to prepare the grounds, saw the seeds and only after a while will see the first signs of germinating plants.

Same is obviously true for investments. People who expect return without giving the investment time to develop, shouldn’t really invest, at least that is what I think.

As always, I encourage you to send me your feedback but please don’t forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:

smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Kind regards,
Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG