November 30, 2006 – Time for the casual Friday blog again. This past week was the late great Bruce Lee’s birthday so I’m paying tribute to Bruce this Friday. Last November, Bosnia unveiled a lifesize bronzed likeness of martial arts legend Bruce Lee. In a country that has witnessed some of the most brutal ethnic [...]

Q: Welcome New Readers From??? This is a continuation from a previous casual Friday blog in which I mentioned my goal was to attract readers from 100 different countries. In the past two weeks, readers from 21 new countries and 4 new territories have accessed the ZOI blog as follows: Denmark, Ghana, Iceland, Hong Kong, [...]

November 30, 2006 – Here is the Wikipedia definition of the psychology phenomenon known as the recency effect: “A cognitive bias that results from disproportionate salience of recent stimuli or observations. For example, if a driver sees an equal total number of red cars as blue cars during a long journey, but there happens to [...]

November 29, 2006 – Many Latin American countries, for decades, exploited by imperialist nations, are now at a tipping point between the poor and moneyed elite. In Mexico, there is great unrest between the poor and upper classes. In Venezuela, divisions of opinion regarding incumbent Venezuelan President Chavez have created a nation on edge. “You’ll [...]

November 28, 2006- This month, the following article appeared in the Bangkok Post. “Ten leading exporters of food, farm goods and garments called for monetary measures and assistance from state agencies to ease the baht’s rapid appreciation, which they say has threatened their competitiveness. The exporters want the government to cap the baht’s appreciation at [...]

November 27, 2006 – Yes, an increase in the minimum wage laws in the U.S., as is likely to occur given the new Democratic Congress, will benefit retailers in the short term because the beneficiaries of such an increase will believe that they have extra cash in their pockets even if they don’t. What do [...]

Q: Is There More to SmartKnowledgeU™ than Just the Zen of Investing (ZOI) Blog? Just FYI, recently, many people have asked me whether there is more to SmartKnowledgeU™ than just this Zen of Investing blog. The answer is yes.  We will be launching a full-fledged online education campus with 23 separate learning modules, exercises, and [...]

November 27, 2006 – I’m not sure how much press this incredible situation is receiving in the Western hemisphere, but here in Asia, it’s receiving almost none. The situation I speak of is the swearing in of unofficial President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a parallel government this week in Mexico. For those unfamiliar with [...]

November 26, 2006 – Every once in a while at the Underground Investor, we’ll revisit old blog posts just to remind our readers of particularly pertinent past posts. Most of the time, however, since they’re already posted, we’ll just leave it up to you the reader to search for them and read them. Back on [...]

Q: What Blog Entry Needs No Question? I guess that latest blog entry wasn’t so light hearted as is the norm with my casual Friday blog entries, so here’s a late addition that should make you smile. This blog entry has no question because the picture to the right says it all.  Recently, at a [...]

November 24, 2006 – Lately there has been much buzz surrounding authors of political books that have predicted the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Iraq War and other major political events. The books are controversial and make great water cooler discussion topics. However, I maintain that these predictions really aren’t as much a [...]

November 22, 2006 – In Part I of this blog, you learned the first seven rules. Here, you will learn seven additional rules. For the curious, the photo to the right are SEALS undergoing an exercise in “drownproofing” where their hands are bound behind their backs and their ankles are bound together. Tweet More on [...]

November 22, 2006-  The rules of elite military special ops have a lot more in common with investing than you could ever imagine. Improve your Wealth Literacy with the following lessons. Tweet More on this topic (What's this?) Measuring the Performance of the Ivy Portfolio (Phil’s Stock World, 12/1/12) These Four Investing Lessons Mean Everything [...]