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 …
It has been a pleasant Mothers’ Day, Covid-19 notwithstanding. Saturday’s weather arrived as a rude and unwelcome winter guest, unconcerned with whether we were prepared for his visit. Sunday greeted us with his prompt departure. Spring has returned. We celebrated as a family with games of fetch and soccer at the field near our home. …
“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 …
While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize – sometimes with astonishment – how happy we had been. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis Our family traveled to Crete last year for a vacation. We visited …
Craig has always been a force of nature; I learned so much from him. Craig was the president of Hartman Employee Benefits (HEB) when I joined the firm and I was fortunate to work closely with him. He taught me a lot about business, including the importance of leadership, salesmanship, and, most of all, relationships. …
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 …
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Mark Twain April 12, 2020. It is Easter Sunday, the fourth day of Passover, and the beginning of the fifth week of the coronavirus-caused shutdown in Pennsylvania. We began the day with a brief note to my Uncle Knud in Denmark, with whom we spent last …
In thinking about the can of worms I opened about this topic, I started jotting notes on directions I might take next. There are so many possilbities. As a matter of inquiry, I found and perused an old copy of Keynes’ General Theory, looked at old international finance lecture notes from Professor Stanley Zin, and …
“How can you not be romantic about baseball?” -Billie Bean We are nearing the end of the fourth week of state-imposed isolation in Pennsylvania. It is also the first full day of Passover. So, in addition to continuing to cope with virtual school, virtual meetings, and the inability to visit with friends, we are also …