Two Investing Classics, Plus a Third Destined to Achieve That Status

Real estate, and the careers that depend upon it, is a boom-bust business in the age of inflation. The illusion of wealth is everywhere..until it is snatched away. That’s why it’s a great time for David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Glengarry Glen Ross” to make its third appearance on the Broadway stage. It’s a show about Chicago real estate salesmen selling Florida properties through deception and intimidation.

Retired Montreal psychology professor Don Crosbie Donderi is convinced extraterrestrial life exists. The educator, who spent 47 years at McGill University, including as associate dean of the faculty of graduate studies and research — applies his insights into psychology to a book: UFOs, ETs, and Alien Abductions, a Scientist looks at the Evidence. It will be published in May. Mr. Donderi spoke to the Post’s Jen Gerson on Monday.

In most businesses the IT team report directly into finance and your investment in technology is likely to be among your biggest capital expenditure. There is no doubt that the right IT investments can help drive new business initiatives, reduce costs and win new customers. But how should CFOs be assessing return on investment? As a CFO, it is critical that you understand your IT spend and how it corresponds to your earnings. So what are the things to look out for as a CFO- here are Synetec’s four sure signs that your IT may be costing instead of making you money:

Holy Ferraris, Batman! The $4.6 million sale of TV's original Batmobile grabbed most of the headlines from the Scottsdale car auction this weekend, but the huge prices paid for Ferraris and other exotics were the real story.

EARLIER today, a friend sent me a note from Louis-Vincent Gave of GaveKal Research (sorry, no link) on how the ECB could preserve the euro without doing anything to offend German sensibilities. Mr Gave suggests that the central bank should stop buying assets and start selling “currency insurance.” It is an intriguing idea, so I have copied some excerpts to provide a flavor of the analysis.Mr Gave begins by arguing that convertability risk is inhibiting investment in the troubled countries:

After nearly 20 years as Sunday business columnist at The Boston Globe, and another eight as proprietor of Economic Principals -- a site that covers the lives, times and ideas of economists -- I have seen my share of books offering investment advice. The most valuable, it seems to me, are those whose authors came up with a thesis about the markets early and then kept refining and updating their ideas during the incredible expansion of financial markets that has occurred since 1975. Three of these, whose first editions appeared in 1982, 1978 and 1973, respectively, are already classics.

Reihan Salam recommends the following insights from Matt Continetti, attempting to referee a debate between David Brooks and Arthur Brooks:

By Simon van Norden Today, we're fortunate to have Simon van Norden, Professor of Finance at HEC Montréal (École des Hautes Études Commerciales), as a guest blogger. "Once you've seen one financial market crisis...you've seen one financial market crisis." -- Attributed to Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh by former US Treasury Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Phillip Swagel in The Financial Crisis