Edward J. Strafaci ~ Academic Blog

According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. But what about the people in between? The middle class? You may be considered middle class. You’re not poor, but you’re not rich…yet. The middle class seems to be shrinking, according to the data revealed over the last couple decades. That means you’re going to be less likely to be middle class in the future. You’ll more likely be poor or rich. Which side do you want to be on? If you want to be on the side with the rich, you’ve got to start thinking like the rich. Here are 10 differences between middle class and rich people for you to learn from… 1. The middle class live comfortably, the rich embrace being uncomfortable “Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it’s a small price to pay for living a dream.” -Peter McWilliams “In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.” – Robert Arnott It’s comf...

The long-running gold rush into hot technology start-ups showed signs of faltering on Wednesday, as a much-anticipated market debut had to scale back its ambitions. Square — valued in a private financing last year at $6 billion — priced its initial public offering at a level that gave the payments company a valuation of $2.9 billion. The difference between the two may be seen as a sign that the market for venture-backed companies has reached too high. The shares, which are to start trading on Thursday, were priced at $9 after Square was unable to get demand from investors within the $11 to $13 range it was seeking. The company and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit, decided to sell $243 million through the offering, 25 percent less than the $324 million they had been aiming to raise. The weak I.P.O. pricing raises the pressure on Jack Dorsey, Square’s chief executive. Last month, Mr. Dorsey was appointed  chief executive of Twitter , the social media c...

You could say that there plenty of not-so-bright people walking around, but it’s not that there are so many of them, it’s just that they are usually the loudest. There are a lot of extremely intelligent people out there, but they simply don’t advertise the fact that they are smart. It comes natural to them, and they try to live their lives freely and without consciously drawing attention to themselves. You can call it modesty or plain old good manners, but these people tend to look and sound quite average, until they surprise you with a gem of wisdom. Here are some of the tell-tale signs that you might be one smart cookie, without appearing so. 1. You’re a night owl As recent research suggests, those who prefer to stay up late, and do their best work at night, average  higher IQ scores than morning people . That being said, staying up late won’t magically hack your brain into being smarter – smarter people are just more likely to work and party during the night, and sle...

Goldman Sachs seems worried about  bond-market liquidity . In a note to clients Tuesday, Charles Himmelberg and Chris Henson at Goldman Sachs dissect the recent decline in dealer inventories of investment-grade corporate bonds. This sounds arcane and boring, but their analysis is one of the most important and troubling things we've read about bond-market liquidity. Now, bond-market liquidity as a topic  also  seems arcane and boring, but is central to thinking about how modern markets function and has been the No. 1 topic of discussion  for months now . The baseline finding in Goldman's note is that for the first time since this number has been measured, dealer inventories of investment-grade corporate bonds is negative. These are bonds of companies like Apple, which are  least  likely, in the market's view, to default on their debt. By negative, Goldman means that when taking the long-term holdings of investment-grade dealer...