I find value in reviewing SEC filings of competitors and vendors I work with. The process of reviewing the Management Discussion and Analysis and financial results, especially, help me feel more informed about the world around me. So, when GoodRX filed its S-1, I certainly intended to review it. Well, I didn’t get around to …
My mother is a real estate agent. In 1996, as a student at Penn State, I thought real estate might be the place to build my own career. During primary school, my brother and I would help market properties by stuffing flyers with details and photographs of listed properties into bags and distribute these bags, …
July 4, 2020. What a strange year thus far. I checked my Facebook and Twitter feeds yesterday morning. There were numerous references to Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the slave is the 4th of July.” I don’t remember thinking about the issues raised within this speech as a younger man. How is that possible? My …
I remember times in grammar school when we discussed time capsules. I remember thinking the idea of putting aside contemporary “artifacts” was clever, but I never became excited about them. I wish I could remember the years we engaged in the exercise of choosing the items; Maybe I was in the fifth grade (1989). I …
I have been making efforts to periodically, throughout the week, choose an occasion to listen to a webcast on a topic different from my day to day business. This week, Penn State’s Smeal College of Business’ Institute for Real Estate Studies hosted a panel discussion on capital markets in the real estate business with some …
Last year I noticed an article on @WSJ about a possible change to the treatment of rebates from drug manufacturers attributable to government accounts of pharmacy benefit managers (PBM). I posted about it on Twitter when I saw it, as I have been interested in the apparent influence of this source of revenue within the …
It is 5:43pm on Saturday, May 16, 2020. COVID-19 continues to be the topic du jour. My personal objectives today included eating breakfast, power-washing our deck, helping Holger with elementary reading, and attempting to develop some insights on the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. Introductory and meandering thoughts I have been working in the insurance …
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” Groucho Marx I wonder if there is a more applicable case of Marx’s quote in 2020 than the topic of corporate stock buybacks within the US political echo-chamber. Here is an interesting article from 2019 on …
There is an idea that the value of a brand is measured in the extent to which the consumer associates a relationship with the product or service. There are some distinctly Northern European brands that I feel like I have a relationship with, including Royal Copenhagen, Skovby, Georg Jensen, and Bang & Olufsen (B&O). Notably …
I started working in the insurance business in 1998. I was a twenty year old student at Penn State University, where I studied economics and business administration, and I attended a career fair seeking a “real life experience”. I spent the prior summertime working as a licensed real estate agent in Bethlehem, PA and felt …