Michael reads an article he recently wrote for The Observer. He weaves in commentary throughout and speaks to the gross misuse of political power. Michael portrays politicians and the D.C. culture as a dog and pony show.
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Tyler Cowen is author of “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream.” Tyler first noticed a problem in America when he began traveling after the financial crisis and saw how “comfortable” life had become for many Americans. People were not taking risks anymore and when risk is taken away, what is left?
There is no way to deliver upward mobility in a society once risk taking, innovation and a sense of urgency has diminished. Americans seemingly have lost the ability to envision a future different than the reality in front of them. Innovation is suffering, travel is disappearing, and people are changing jobs much less than ever before. Tyler describes this shift in mentality as people losing their sense of restlessness and change. There is no feeling of opportunity costs.
Why is this happening? How can American’s not imagine something better? American lives have become safe and comfortable — risk is the only factor that can help transition Americans away from their own complacency. Unfortunately, it won’t happen with people pushing for it, it will have to hit them. We are investing less in science, have obvious issues with cyber vulnerability and infrastructure is not advancing. American culture is lacking and nothing is getting better. Why have people stopped creating? Will there be a great reset in government and on Wall Street? These questions and more are answered throughout the podcast.
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Gimme Danger with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio. A new monologue for the week.
Jon Gordon is an author and speaker on leadership, culture, sales, and teamwork. He has worked with numerous athletic organizations, academic institutions, and corporations. His latest book is “The Power of Positive Leadership.” He teaches people how to focus on weeding out the negative and not letting that energy poison the team.
Jon describes himself as a once fearful, negative and stressed out 31-year old. What changed all of that? His wife gave him the ultimatum: Change your life or I am leaving you. He had an “Aha” moment that gave him the revelation he was meant to write and speak. However, Jon knew he needed to work on himself first, so he started taking steps to better himself. He began by going on walks of gratitude and created a “positive tip of the week” newsletter. This lead to him creating a website, doing about 80 free talks to get started, and ultimately just going for it as an entrepreneur. Jon describes impacting others as being the greatest feeling in the world.
“The Power of Positive Leadership” and Jon’s overall message is about how to root out the negative and focus on the positive. One negative person can bring an entire team down. He calls these people “negative vampires” and says they must be addressed, called out, and kicked off the bus. Building positive leaders fosters building a positive team. You get people on your bus by the way you lead. It can’t be an ultimatum—“Be positive or your are out of here!”
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A new mono… with some freaking edge.
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Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman are authors of “Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar” and their newest book is “A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age.” Jimmy and Rob highlight aspects of their new book by detailing who Claude Shannon is and why he is so fundamental for our everyday lives.
Claude Shannon made the entire digital age possible. As Jimmy and Rob said, “He didn’t just think about things, he thought through things.” What made Shannon so unique? He was extremely curious about information and wanted to know about all aspects of it. He brought a lot of insights into a subject that seemingly would come from left field. Shannon was also brilliant at transmitting information and breaking the complex into the simplistic. He allowed himself to move into different fields and go wherever his mind wanted to take him but never wasting his time on an unworthy subject. He could expertly sort through what was worth working on and what was a waste of time.
How do we talk about information? How are we going to quantify information? Where did Shannon live and how did he live? Jimmy and Rob not only dug through scholarly journals to find out how Shannon thought, they also talked to the Shannon family and got to learn who he was as a father, husband and friend. When people think of Shannon’s level of genius, most think he must have short comings in his social life. Shannon did not. His colleagues, family and friends new him as a guy that barbecued, went running, and did his unreal math projects.
Another fascinating trait Shannon had was his ability to not let critics get to him. He was smart enough to know that when he did projects and knew he was right, he didn’t need to pay any attention to the critics. He had confidence that came from his kind of intellectualism. He worked on the information theory over the course of 10 years while working on other projects. By the time he had published it, he already new he was right and had moved onto his next endeavor before the critics could get to him. Jimmy, Rob and Michael end the podcast discussing how Jimmy and Rob came to write this book together and what their collaboration process was.
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An impassioned intro and an oldie but goodie monologue. Enjoy!
Andrew Lo is author of “Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought.” He is also the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor of Finance at MIT and the chairman and chief investment strategist of the AlphaSimplex Group.
Andrew was taught from the beginning of his career that the efficient market hypothesis was gospel truth. It was the end-all-be-all. However, he first found a problem with the efficient market hypothesis just after graduating college. He did a test on the “random walk hypothesis” and related his findings from that hypothesis to the markets. He then came to find that his results proved the efficient market hypothesis wrong. Was there pushback during the early stages of talking about EMT being wrong? Absolutely. Andrew was one of the strongest that pushed back primarily because it went against everything he previously knew to be true.
Andrew talks about another study he did with one of his MIT classes in 2004. He looked at hedge funds around that time and through data he proved that they were headed for trouble. They were able to foresee a small piece of the 2008 crash. Michael and Andrew end the podcast talking about Andrew’s new book and the role that the environment is playing in adaptive markets. When studying a species, what should be asked is, “Is it the species that is complex, or is it the environment that is complex and the species is just adapting to it?” Many species have figured out how to live in harsh environments in very different ways. In the same light, there are many different ways that people can trade the market and be successful.
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Steve Burns and Michael Covel get together yet again to discuss all that is trading.
After a lifelong fascination with financial markets, Steve Burns started investing in 1993, and trading his own accounts in 1995. It was love at first trade. A natural teacher with a unique ability to cut through the bull and make complex ideas simple, Steve took to blogging and social media by founding New Trader U in 2011.
Since then, New Trader U has attracted hundreds of thousands of visits a month, becoming the go-to resource for people wanting to build a strong, trading foundation. New Trader U offers an extensive blog resource with more than 1,000 original articles (Steve posts daily and is the author of numerous trading books).
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