I stopped moderating comments — too much negative feedback, too many hassles. I may reinstitute moderation if the blog starts to attract trolls, as happens from time to time.
Month: February 2008
The Trolley–A View From 1902
Jonathan’s urban planning post, and comments by Tatyana and others, reminded me of an interesting passage in Visions of Technology, by Richard Rhodes. Writing in 1902, at the dawn of the electric trolley era, Charles M Skinner recorded his impressions of that technology in an essay titled The American Will Not Live Near His Work. Some excerpts:
Wash Me
My Investing Side Project
In addition to blogging I have some other side projects. One of my side projects is the web site www.trustfundsforkids.com (I’m not really plugging anything because there are no advertisements on the site and it is a simple, single page site with down loadable schedules) which describes the process of setting up a trust fund and the performance of the three trust funds that I have set up (so far) for my nephews and nieces.
The three portfolios invest in stocks. Portfolio one has a market value of about $16,000, Portfolio two has a market value of about $8500, and Portfolio three has a market value of about $1500. The size of the portfolio is driven by how many years of contributions have been made (7, 4 and 1 respectively).
About half way down the page (or you can use this link and jump there) each of the three portfolios has a single page that summarizes the key information. I put these schedules together manually from a variety of sources and have refined it annually.
How to Organize Your Stock Portfolio
It is actually quite difficult to put together a simple, single page worksheet that tells you what you want to know about your portfolio. While investing firms are getting better and better each year in formatting information and adding new organizational layouts (and of course it is so much better to download forms rather than have reams of paper), they still don’t easily tell you what you want to know, which is why (for now) I am creating my own formats. Here is what is contained: