Why most university degrees are worthless, Part 2

When I say that “most university degrees are worthless” I don’t mean “no one should go to college” or “drop out of school now.”

I mean that the objective value of university degrees is more often than not negative. If governments stopped subsidizing higher education, the vast majority of young people and employers would find a way to match with each other without wasting four years.

By this, I don’t mean “in a theoretical utopia you don’t need to go to school, but in the real world, you better start on your applications.” The fact is that many, if not most young people *are* needlessly wasting four years and getting into lifelong debt for no good reason. The alternative to university is not “apply to the same position four years earlier” — though in many cases college grads and dropouts do end up in jobs they could have gotten out of high school.   If you’re determined to be a industrial engineer, brain surgeon, rocket scientist, you currently have no choice but to get a degree.  However the majority of students – the business, english, history, education, and other assorted liberal arts majors have no business being there.

The real alternative to college is to find a way to build skills and demonstrate your market value with less time and money than a conventional education. Vocational training, apprenticeships, online courses are all possible paths to a career. People often respond to this argument by pointing out that college grads tend to earn much higher incomes than those with only high school diplomas. But this is a misleading statistic because a university is nearly universally viewed as the only means to a successful career, so highly motivated people are brainwashed into thinking that success means going to school. If these people were aware that another option was open to them, they might be even more successful.

Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, John Mackey, and many more dropped out of school when they realized that the benefit of starting their careers immediately exceeded the return on their degrees. I’m not saying that everyone could be a billionaire if they drop out, but how many people needlessly delay the real world to meet someone else’s standard of success?

Do I regret going to school? No – I regret going to school with the expectation that a degree in itself would guarantee a good career, instead of the goal to become someone who could create value in the market. When I failed out of aerospace engineering as a freshman, I regret not taking a break to decide what career I wanted instead of changing to the first major that seemed interesting at the time. I regret leaving the dot-com I started with a friend as a junior to focus on my grades, instead of working harder to make the business a success. I regret not starting my career with two useless bachelor’s degrees and learning to code instead of getting a useless masters that I never used. I regret not pursuing my passion for web design during my senior year of high school in 1999, when I mastered Dreamweaver and started my first blog.

Here is the mistake that so many make: I delayed entry into the real world for as long as possible based on the lie that what I learned in school would be valued by the market, and my skill at passing tests would translate to skill at doing a job. I was wrong: I spent the first ten years of my career learning for the first time how to be a productive worker. In short – I let my schooling interfere with my education.

A letter to my broker on the Fiduciary Rule and the repeal of Dodd Frank

The CEO of my brokerage firm asked for my support in opposing the Trump administration’s plan to roll back the Dodd Frank Act and the Fiduciary Rule for retirement accounts, which would require brokers for retirement accounts to act in their client’s best interest. Sounds great, right? This is what I wrote in response: 

Dear [CEO’s Name],

Please allow me to share a few thoughts on your request as a client of [Firm Name]:

I appreciate that you believe that the Fiduciary Rule and the Dodd Frank Act are in the interests of consumers and the economy. I respectfully disagree.

Furthermore I think it is a bit irresponsible for you to advocate for these policies without admitting that [] has a personal financial interest at stake.

One of the selling points for [] is that your advisors are fiduciaries. I don’t need to tell you that the Fiduciary rule shook up the 401K/retirement industry and created an advantage for companies which already had a fiduciary policy for their clients. Firms like [] which did not have to make the switch had an edge in selling their products.

Now as to the wisdom of the Rule itself:

Personally, I value having a fee-only advisor who is legally bound to sell the best products for me. Yet this not necessarily true for everyone. A fiduciary advisor who cannot profit from selling securities directly must earn his living by charging an explicit fee for his services. This fee-only model is not suitable for everyone — especially investors who are just starting out.

I would not have made my first mutual fund purchase as a 16-year-old if not for the efforts of a commission-only advisor who taught me about the value of compound growth. Years later, as a financially irresponsible young professional who had failed at investing on his own, another commission-only advisor set me on the path to financial independence. While management fees would have discouraged me early on, at some point, without any legislative help, I recognized the value of a fiduciary advisor, and switched to your company on my own. Yet if it were not for the initial push and value of no-fee offering, my 16 year-old-self would probably not have started on this road.

While I would not advise anyone to use a commission-only advisor today, fee-only advisors are prohibitively expensive or unknown to many people with limited access or experience with the financial system, and I don’t like the idea of a legislative solution forcing a one size fits all fix on everyone. Furthermore, while a fiduciary is prohibited from *profiting* from his advice, the law can’t make him give *good* advice, so there is no guarantee that budget fee-only fiduciary advisors will offer better financial advice than commission-based advisors.

Now as to Dodd-Frank. This legislation is complex, and has many provisions, and I think it’s an oversimplification for you to simply say that that it “protects consumers” and will “prevent recessions”:

First, surely you don’t believe that Dodd Frank prevents *all* recessions, or even major recessions, or you would not be investing my money as you are [by putting a portion in safe, recession-proof securities]. Recessions have many causes, but the most common one is government policies — and there is no reason to believe that the Fed or other government institutions are any less likely to cause a recession in the future due to this legislation.

Second, as I’m sure you know, the financial industry was already heavily regulated prior to Dodd Frank, and the Act adds several more layers. We can debate just how much protection it adds, but all the numerous prior laws (starting with Glass-Steagall, etc) failed to stop recessions, bailouts, or bad behavior towards consumers, and there is little reason to believe that this time Congress finally fixed capitalism once and for all.

In fact, all this legislation created numerous additional costs which consumers ultimately pay for, and leads to regulatory capture — the most common way for financial institutions to mask their bad behavior. Without going into technical and historical detail, I believe the Dodd Frank Act created a lot of extra costs for consumers without much additional protection. This is why most banks eliminated freebies such as free checking and the community banks’ share of the lending market fell to just 20%. Surely companies with established and fell-funded compliance departments such as yours have an easier time complying with these rules than small startups who might try to compete with you.

To conclude, I do appreciate the fiduciary policy of [] and the legal protections for what others can do with my assets. Yet I dislike my money being used to advocate for overly simplistic and historically ignorant political solutions, especially when such advocacy comes with a conflict of interest.

Make your job your primary focus in life

Our culture has shifted away from viewing work as the main focus of people’s lives.  Part of the cause is economic: most people no longer need to work hard in order not to starve to death on the streets. Furthermore, the differences between income levels are far less important: your friend might have $1 or $1 million in the bank without much noticeable difference in lifestyle, whereas it used to mean the difference between a poor house or a mansion. Another aspect of it is philosophical: we have lost the understanding that markets are responsible for civilization, and so place far less value in productive work.

Career advice for the young: your job should be your primary focus in life. This is not to dismiss the value of family, friends, etc, but as far goal pursuit is concerned, you need to prioritize your career. I see young people who come in the morning tired from video games, partying, reading books, hobbies, etc. You guys need to think hard about your life and your time management. Schedule your social life, put time limits on games, sip your liquor, whatever it takes.
Cut out the non-essential crap in your life so you can come in and perform like a rockstar every morning. Playtime is over — you’re not a kid anymore and need to start adulting ASAP. If you can’t get sufficiently motivated about your job to do that, quit now and find something that drives you to perform your best. Trust me – it will be worth it.

When I give this advice, people inevitably complain that by stressing the importance of work, I dismiss the value of family. Nevermind that young people today don’t place much value in family either – the kind of diversions I mentioned have little to do with forming meaningful relationships. In one aspect, however, I think I value family more than most of my critics. I used to dismiss stay at home moms (or dads) as incomplete human beings who failed to reach their potential. Over time, however, I saw the value of attachment parenting – close physical and emotional contact between parent and child is very important. Furthermore, the financial advantage of two working spouses is less than is often assumed and misses out on major non-material costs. So I’m not so “anti-family” after all.

Finally, making your career your primary purpose in life does not mean working more hours. Not only is overwork counterproductive, but it is often the excuse to avoid taking the few, uncomfortable steps needed to actually make progress in life.  A good work-life balance doesn’t mean arbitrarily delimiting work/non-work hours. It means evaluating what habits and activities in your work and personal life are worthwhile investments and which ones are not, and delegating time accordingly.

Why we need disruption now more than ever

Ever since I discovered the importance of individual rights and the role of markets in human progress, my biggest fear about the fate of world has been not that things will get worse, but that we will muddle along with more of the same.

My study of history led me to the conclusion that the rapid growth in the power of the State following the First World War reached some threshold in the late 1960s, and damned up (however imperfectly) human moral, social, artistic and technological progress in many ways.   I don’t mean some sort of utopia, but the next semi-metaphorical stage of human evolution.  A true cosmopolitanism to replace multi-cultural tribalism, post-post-modernism, post-democratic forms of government (distributed citizenship?), ubiquitous encryption, smart contracts, prediction markets, distributed education, designer babies, single stage to orbit, organ printing, uploaded brains, etc.  Ironically, it was capitalism that created the technological progress and additional capital to make the modern welfare-warfare state possible, before Statism throttled it.

The perpetuation of the mixed economy, a condition somewhere between freedom and slavery threatens the progress of civilization on a fundamental level. The social-democratic welfare-warfare governments of the world strangle innovation, corrupt cultural and moral progress, and hinder the flow of history itself. Ultimately, the fault is not with politicians but with ourselves, down the small-town American voter who uses political violence to zone his competitor out of business, or big-city busybody who votes to decide what how neighbor is allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or play.

I know that no human institution is eternal, and for better or worse, this era of history will someday come to an end, but the possibility that it will last through my lifetime fills some deep part of me with an existential dread.

How will the next phrase of history arrive? Will it be a peaceful and harmonious transition to a glorious future, a descent into totalitarianism followed by tragedy, conflict and collapse, or something I cannot imagine? Whatever it is, I want to live to see it — and I will do my damnedest to bring our long-delayed future forward.

I believe that history has a momentum and a direction of its own. Capital accumulates, knowledge and wisdom is perfected, and though it is weak, imperfect and inconsistent, I believe that there is a *moral* arrow to history – a steady progress towards a better, more rational, just, kind, and *human* future.

For decades now, democratic nations have existed in an increasingly precarious state, as increasing productivity of labor enables ever more looting of the productive class, but just below a level that would lead to social collapse.

I believe that technological progress will become ever more rapid and unpredictable, disputing the rigid schemes of the central planners. Economic cycles will accelerate, central banks will fail, and empires will rise — and fall. Or so I hope.

For better or worse, we need disruption to bring our long-delayed future forward. This is the thread that informs my criticism of our most respected institutions, and my support of the most subversive, disruptive trends.

Here is why most university degrees are worthless, Part 1

I needed a foreign language credit for my undergraduate, so I decided to take Russian, since I had grown up speaking it. So I took a Russian assessment test. It was harder than I expected, but I was still pretty surprised when told that I would have to start from scratch with Russian 101. When I challenged the head of the Russian language department, he asked me a series of grammar questions, which only confirmed the test results. So I took the few semesters of Russian needed for my degree. I got easy A’s – not because I was fluent in Russian, but because I had been trained by 13 years of schooling to memorize grammar rules for tests. My friend Tim took them with me, and I think he would not dispute that he learned absolutely nothing while getting the same grades.

16 years later, and 26 years after I had last spoken Russian on a daily basis, my uncles, who only speak Russian and Hebrew, came to visit. Within a few hours of speaking (and drinking) with them, we were talking and joking together. I had been reading at a college level when I left the USSR, and all I needed to jog my memory was a little language immersion. It turns out I’m not a total beginner. The head of the Russian language department, who had learned the language in a classroom, and probably had never lived in Russia outside of supervised university trips had no interest or ability to spend a few hours with me, and do more good than three semesters of classes. Not everyone can re-learn a language with a few hours of immersion, but everyone has different needs and learns in different ways, and our schooling system is designed for mass instruction without any regard for individual needs.

A month ago, I changed my job from technology to marketing. A graduate degree and 14 years of experience in tech, and I suddenly decided to do something different. Do you think I could have done that if I defined myself by my university degree? I haven’t read a book on marketing (not proud of that btw, just saying), much less taken a class on it, but was I worried? No – because I know how to Google, I know how to ask for help, and I know how to Get Shit Done. And I’m getting it done, my useless economics, political-science and MIS degrees be damned.

Meanwhile, do you know how many unemployed/underemployed marketing/communications graduates there are? I’m hiring one as an intern next week – who wised up to his useless degree and got Praxis (God bless ‘em) to show him to do marketing – starting with marketing himself.

Who knows what I’ll be doing a few years from now. I’ve thought about writing a few books, maybe doing travel photography for a while, or even a starting a hedge fund. If I thought that I needed four years of school for every job, I would still be an unemployed economics graduate.

Financial Responsibility Is about Habits, Not Budgeting

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “personal finance?” I bet it’s “balancing a checkbook.”

Young people are spending more than their entire paycheck each month.

Do you know anyone who does it? I don’t. Like most people under the age of 40, the only checks I ever write are to the government – to pay for taxes and speeding tickets. Everyone else has moved on. Like most Americans who don’t live in a log cabin in the backwoods, I use a bank account and credit cards that keep a record of all my transactions.

No doubt a written record of transactions was essential during the first five thousand or so years of civilization – until we got online bank accounts and apps with bots who know how to navigate the archaic interfaces of the banking websites and automatically compile an intuitive real-time infographic of your financial status. There’s a category of thousands of apps now in the Android and Apple app stores.

In 2016, I re-integrated into the Western financial system after half a decade in cash-only China. As soon as my plane landed, my feed was flooded with ads for apps promising to budget my spending, repair my credit, and invest for retirement. Popular gimmicks include redirecting the spare change from purchases into savings, safe-keeping a few dollars each month for a big purchase, and keeping certain categories of spending to a monthly budget.

Apps Won’t Cure Your Affluenza

The sense that emerges from these apps, as well as surveys of spending habits, is that Americans have lost self-control over their wallets. Young people are spending more than their entire paycheck each month (the millennial savings rate is negative 2%), and only by various means of self-deception and outside intervention (via hidden or protected savings accounts) can they ever save a few pennies for anything beyond momentary whims.

Instead of driving up your blood sugar and destroying your arteries, you are driving up your debt and destroying your retirement prospects.

For those afflicted by a lack of good finance habits, I have news:

The whole concept of “budgeting” as we know it is flawed and counterproductive. Financial responsibility and abundance requires developing good habits and a healthy relationship with material possessions.

Suppose that you were overweight because your diet was mostly junk food. What if I asked you to start following a “calorie budget?” Eating a bunch of carbs will cause your blood sugar to spike. When you suddenly cut off their source, your blood sugar will drop and you will get tired, moody, and develop an insatiable craving for more sugar. Failure is inevitable.

Bad spending habits work the same way: you buy whatever fills your craving at the moment. The sugar high is replaced by the rush of getting a shiny new thing. Soon after, the high wears off, and the craving for more stuff returns. Instead of driving up your blood sugar and destroying your arteries, you are driving up your debt and destroying your retirement prospects.

We’re Addicted to Junk

It’s no coincidence that modern Western societies are the first to have a large portion of the population addicted to both things and food – for the first time in history, we have the wealth (and credit) to buy a near-unlimited supply of both stuff and food. Something similar has happened with our sleep: artificial lightning plus the ever-present Internet divorced sleep from daylight, causing an epidemic of both sleep deprivation and insomnia. People stay up late seeking cheap stimulation, drug themselves with coffee in the morning, and stumble through their lives.

Focus your energy on things that make you a happier and healthier person, not distractions and momentary pleasures.

I often see people buy a thing as a substitute for the experience the object provides. For example, many people will buy a gym membership because they want to get in shape. But having bought the membership, they make no effort to use it, because they act as if the purchase itself will achieve their goal. Likewise, people buy books they never read as if owning the book itself will bring knowledge.

Our addiction for stuff does not only affect our credit cards. Like the fat we accumulate from a bad diet, our stuff accumulates and becomes an anchor which ties us down. The 21st century demands that work be nimble and mobile – seizing opportunities whenever they may be. I followed opportunities across states, countries, and then continents during my brief career. This is impossible to do with a house, the stuff filling it, and the debt to pay for it all weigh you down. When I got an offer to work in Asia, my wife and I packed two suitcases each and got on a flight. Five years later, we flew back with the same four suitcases.

Develop an abundance mindset

Don’t budget. Don’t save the spare change from every transaction, or hide it in a hidden bank account. Beware the scarcity mindset — saving is not an act of suffering and denial, but an act of exchanging a momentary pleasure for a longer-term value: the big-ticket item you are saving up to buy, such as a house or retirement. $1 saved and invested today becomes $10 in 30 years if you invest in the market.

Three Steps to Responsible Spending Habits

1: Monitor and reflect on every transaction. Use Personal Capital or Mint to track every transaction across all your accounts and cards. Instead of reviewing your credit card statement once a month, set up push notifications for every transaction. Develop an intuition for how much you spend for every category. At first, you won’t have the self-control to stop yourself before you buy stuff. Reflect on every purchase and think about whether the pleasure of spending money now is worth delaying a life of financial success and independence. 

2: Discover what makes you happy. Focus your energy on things that make you a happier and healthier person, not distractions and momentary pleasures. I save a fortune each year by biking to work, bringing my lunch to work, and living in a small apartment. At the same time, I’m not afraid to invest time, money, and energy into hobbies that I’m passionate about.

3: Make your money work for you. There is only so much you can save every month. Long-term financial success requires investing in yourself by increasing your income and making your money work for you while you enjoy life. Develop your career, and make your money work for you through smart investments.

How I learned to stop worrying about my credit and love plastic

Whether you’ve decided that you don’t need credit cards in your life, or stick to a single card you got in college, you’re making a big mistake. You need a proactive credit-building strategy.

Many millennials have opted out of the American dream of owning a house and filling it with stuff they can’t afford.  Perhaps you’ve decided that paying cash is a more responsible personal finance habit.  You may have looked at the wasteful spending habits if your friends and decided not to tempt yourself with a credit card.  Some friends have left university deeply in student loan and credit card debt, and decided to simply ignore it, hoping that it will be forgotten by the time they need to borrow money.

Whether you’ve decided that you don’t need credit cards in your life, or stick to a single card you got in college, you’re making a big mistake.  You need a proactive credit-building strategy.

There are many useful benefits to credit cards:

  • Consumer protection:  If you want to dispute a charge, credit cards offer far more protection than debit cards.  In some cases, card issuers actively investigate my cases even after pushback from the seller until I was satisfied.  You’re unlikely to get the same treatment from a bank.
  • Benefits: Many credit cards reward you for using them – with sign up bonuses, cash back, or travel points.  They may also provide insurance on purchases, price matches, a concierge service, or many other perks.
  • Emergency fund: In an emergency, credit cards offer immediate access to funds.  Sometimes it’s better to go into debt than  me unable to pay for urgent auto or medical expenses.
  • Cash flow flexibility: Credit cards allow me to separate by outgoing and incoming flows.  Though I pay off the balance every month, I only keep a bare minimum in my checking account.  Because all my purchases go on a credit card, I can buy what I need without worrying whether I have to cashout my investments to pay for it.
  • Travel: When traveling overseas, credit cards offer many benefits: one of my cards offers free international purchases – most debit cards charge 3%.  They will express me new cards if my wallet is stolen, help me find the service I want in almost any country, and provide car rental insurance, trip interruption insurance, and more.
  • Building a credit history: credit cards the the primary method to build a credit history. If you don’t trust yourself with credit, why should anyone else? For more, read on:

Three myths about credit cards and personal credit

Myth #1: I don’t need to care about my credit if I don’t need any loans

While getting out of debt is harder than building up a credit history from scratch, both can cause serious problems even if you don’t need to borrow money anytime soon:

  • Your credit history may be used when reviewing job applications, setting your auto insurance rate, evaluating apartment rental applications and the deposit amount, applying for a cellular contract, and much more.
  • Even if you don’t plan to take out a loan for many years, the longer your credit history, the higher your score, so it pays to start early.
  • Higher credit scores qualify you for lower interest and insurance rates, which can save a lot of money.
  • If you ever start a business and need a business loan, you need a personal credit history for business loans, purchases on credit, etc.

Your credit record is not a single number, as competing scores and versions of scores are used by different institutions.  Furthermore, banks will combine your public credit record with proprietary information to derive a custom score used to make decisions.  Building a good credit history focus each category in your credit record: paying bills on time, building a diverse credit history, and growing your available credit.

Myth #2 I need to take out a loan or keep a credit balance to build up a credit history

This is the most common bad advice you may have heard about credit.  When lenders decide whether to give your credit, they don’t care how much money you made other banks.  They only care whether you will cost them money – the chance that you will not repay your debts.  To prove that you are a good credit risk, you just need a history of financial responsibility.  A history of payments for mortgage, auto, or a student loan will improve your score, but it is not needed – I have an “excellent” credit score, and I’ve never paid interest for a debt.

Here is how to get a great credit score:

Step 1: Monitor your credit history

Begin by getting your credit score from CreditKarma.com, Wallethub.com, or Capital One Credit Wise These free services will show your latest credit score as often as every day, and alert you to any changes from their smartphone apps.  Your goal is to get an “Excellent” score for each “important” credit factor:

credit-factors

Step 2: Apply for a credit card if you don’t have one:

If you’ve never had a card before, check if your bank has a credit card.  NerdWallet has a review of 1700 cards.  The variety of cards on offer is overwhelming, and many people simply get the card offers they get in the mail.  That’s usually a mistake – the credit offers I get in the mail are always worse than the cards I selected through research.  Also, if you accept all the offers you see just for their sign-up benefits, you will end up spending much more than you intended.  Use a guide to pick a card suitable for your life situation.

Here’s some basic advice for different credit situations:

  • Poor or no credit: Get a secured no-fee card such as the Discover it® Secured Card.
  • OK credit: Chase Freedom (5% back on revolving categories)
  • Great credit: Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express ($300 for signing up and 1-3% back) or Citi Double Cash Card (2% back on everything).

Personally, I use six cards with the Wallaby Mobile App, which detects when I’m visiting a store or restaurant and suggests the best card to use.  I get 5% back for many of my purchases, as well as benefits such as roadside service, free travel and theft insurance, no-fee foreign transactions, and a personal concierge to help with difficult purchases and resolving disputes.  When used responsibly, credit cards are actually pretty useful!

Step 3: Set up auto-pay to pay cards in full every month

The first thing I do when I get a new credit card is set up auto-pay to pay the amount in full each month. As explained above, keeping a balance won’t help your credit record.  In fact, it will lower your credit score by raising your credit utilization and you will pay a fortune in interest payments.

This advice goes for all other services and utilities as well.   Set up auto-pay and never worry about due dates.  For services which do not support direct debit, use bill pay service through your bank or Mint Bills, so you can pay them online with one click.

Step 4: Build your credit over time

Once you have a positive credit record, you can apply for new cards and increase the credit limit on existing ones.  Your credit utilization (the percentage of available credit that you’ve used) is a major factor in your credit score, so as long as you can use credit responsibly, increase it by occasionally applying for new card and requesting increases.  Cards with the best benefits typically require excellent credit, and it will take some time to build a suitable credit history.   While I’ve heard advice suggesting a six month wait between credit requests, in the last month, I asked for four credit increases this month, for up to 3X my previous credit limit, and was approved with only one hard credit pull.  

Myth #3: Credit card issuers want you deeply in debt so they can make money on fees and interest

Probably the main reason why people avoid credit cards is that they have a sleazy reputation for suckering people into unsustainable debt by leading them to buy stuff they can’t afford.   This is no doubt a serious problem for many people.   Yet people have been borrowing money to buy things they can’t afford as long as money has existed.   

The main source of income for credit card companies are transaction fees collected from merchants for credit card charges, not interest or fees.  Interest and fees are an important, but secondary source of income to them.   Sure, they would love for you to keep a balance, occasionally forget to pay the bill, and pay a bunch of fees.  Keep in mind though, that everyone loses when people can’t pay for their debts and have to have them written off.  Credit cards and banks want you to be financially successful and only a little bit irresponsible, not bankrupt.

The wide availability of consumer credit is a great innovation:  for the first time in history, most people in the developed world can buy goods and services on credit, just by swiping a plastic card.  The credit system is not perfect, but for the most part, it is fair, transparent, and convenient.   It’s certainly better than borrowing money from friends, family, or loan sharks.  Bad credit sucks, but at least no one will break your legs over it, and unlike a relationship destroyed by money between friends, you can recover from bad credit just by improving your financial habits.

20 things you can do on election day to improve your life

While improving the world is a worthy goal, it is even more important to invest in yourself. Your life is the only one under your control, and setting an example for others is one of the best way to create positive change. Don’t get distracted by politics – no matter who you vote for, it will only leave you distracted, disillusioned and feeling more powerless than ever. You can act right now to improve your life in a million small ways, and become a model for others to do the same. Here are 20 ideas for becoming the change you wish to see in the world:

Everywhere I look today, everyone is telling me how important it is that I vote.  I’ve written before why I am boycotting the vote this election.  The fact is that regardless of where you live or who you support, as a practical matter, your vote makes very little difference.   However, just because I am opposed to voting, does not mean that I’ve given up.  There are many worthwhile charitable and for-profit organizations that you can support instead of wasting your time and money on elections.

While improving the world is a worthy goal, it is even more important to invest in yourself.  Your life is the only one under your control, and setting an example for others is one of the best way to create positive change.  Don’t get distracted by politics – no matter who you vote for, it will only leave you distracted, disillusioned and feeling more powerless than ever.  You can act right now to improve your life in a million small ways, and become a model for others to do the same.  Here are 20 ideas for becoming the change you wish to see in the world:

1 Skip the small talk and talk about issues that really matter:

During the typical electoral banter on election night, skip the small talk and have a genuine discussion. Ask your friend why he holds a particular position about an issue, and then ask why he believes that, and so one.  Don’t stop until you’re sharing fundamental ideas.

2 Ask someone’s opinion and really listen:

Once you understand someone’s perspective, it is much easier to convince them.  And who knows, you might even change your own mind.

3 Buy some bitcoin.  Even better, buy something with bitcoin:

I don’t need to tell you why bitcoin is a big deal.  Read one of the 100 articles here.   Bitcoin is not perfect, but this magic Internet money is one of the best hopes humanity has of building a genuinely free society.   It may take several decades, but every time you make a bitcoin purchase, you make a small investment in a free society .

4 Invest $5 in the stock market:

I started investing with the first money I ever made at 15 sweeping construction sites.  I’m not very good with math, but somehow I figured out that if I start early and make a small return every year, I can make a fortune without doing anything much.   This strategy has been working great for me for over 20 years now, yet I keep hearing excuses that people don’t have money to invest.   Look, now you can start as low as $1 just by tapping a few options in an app.  The important thing is to get started early.

5 Update your LinkedIn profile:

Unhappy with your job?  Great – update your LinkedIn profile, and get started with your next one.  Happy with your job?  Update your profile anyway – you never know when a better opportunity will come along.  By always staying in the market, you will know what you’re worth, and take advantage of opportunities can come your way.  LinkedIn has liberated more workers from jobs they hate than all the unions of the world.

6 Ask someone new at the office out to lunch:

It’s easy to have lunch with the same four guys on your team every day.  However, work lunches are a key opportunity to advance your career.  Whether it’s a mentor, or your peer on another team, eating together is a valuable opportunity to become more effective at your job.   Lunches can be used to get advice on your ideas, build support for a project, develop inter-departmental collaborations, or find out what someone really thinks without the pressure of an official meeting.  Effective leaders use informal opportunities like lunches and walks to explore people’s preferences and build consensus and formal meetings only to seal the deal.

7 Go for a walk in the park:

I don’t know much about health and medicine, but I know this: our bodies evolved to need a variety of daily movement.  Exercise is great, but unless you’re a pro athlete, it’s always going to be a small fraction of your total time.  Also, stretching out exercise lowers the intensity and that kind of repeated stress lead to injury.  So: find a way to walk every day.  It will improve your mood, give your more energy, and prevent illness.  

8 Go to bed early tonight:

Skip the election results and go to bed early night.  A proper sleep schedule accounts for about 50% of success in life.  Here’s your chance to show your commitment.

9 Make a list of 25 things you want to do in life.  Now, never think about the last 20 again.   

This is Warren Buffet’s secret to success.   Focus on what is important, and don’t let all the other things be a distraction to you.

10 Ride your bike (or just walk) to work:

I ride a bike to work almost every morning.   This saves me nearly $10,000 for year, among many other benefits.  

11 Bring your lunch to work:

I save at least $2000 per year this way – and I eat much healthier, and save tons of time.  

12 Buy your significant other flowers:

Do I need to explain why this one is a winner?

13 Go through your closet and give away anything you don’t fit into or haven’t worn in over a year

You don’t need that baggage in your life.

14 Post some old photos on Facebook/Instagram/Google Photos/Snapchat:

Do you know how you always take photos and promise to share them, but never do?   Go find all those old photos and share them today.  It will bring break some great memories, and people will really appreciate you for it.  It will certainly be a welcome distraction from the election.

While you’re at it, find some old family photos, scan them, and tag them up on Facebook or Google.  Your relatives will love you for it, even if you haven’t spoken for 20 years.

15 Change the battery on your phone:

Look, I know it sounds like I’m running out of ideas, but tons of people I know are always anxious about their battery life.  The ones who keep checking their screen, closing their apps, and leaving early because their phone is about to die.

Did you know that battery life drops sharply after about 18 months?  I change my iPhone’s battery every year, and it feels like I have a new phone.  It costs $20, and takes about 10 minutes to do.

16 Change the cabin air filter in your car:

I discovered this recently:  The cabin air filter filters all the filthy disgusting highway air that you breathe.  The oil change place wanted $45 to do it.  The old filter was clogged full of leaves, mold, and bugs.  I was breathing that stuff!  I paid $15 on Amazon.com and changed it myself in about 5 minutes.  It’s got charcoal and baking soda and I feel much better on the few occasions that I have to drive.

17 Cancel your cable and get rid of our television:

I know this seems like a big ask, but I got rid of my my TV in 2010 and have never regretted it.  I still watch stuff occasionally, but it’s a conscious decision, and I have to make some effort, so the quality of what I end up watching is much better.

18 Write a thank you letter to someone.

19 Pitch a new project to your boss – or better yet, just do it.

Putting your career first is the best way to make your first million while you’re still young.

20 Throw away all the old adapters and broken electronics you have lying around:

Seriously.  I used to have boxed and boxes of them.   USB-C is coming.  Just trash it all.  Trust me – I spent my entire career in IT, and I found the adapter I needed in there maybe two times.

21 Clean up your address book:

Use an app like CircleBack (free) to merge duplicates, update outdated contacts, etc.

While you’re at it, find someone you haven’t heard from in a while, and send them a hello.

22 Write a blog post:

What do you think is a better use of my time – going out to the polls, or writing this list?  If at least one person tries a single idea on my list, I will have influenced someone’s life for the better.  Do you think the same can be said of you going to vote?  Go inspire someone.

Financial success for young adults in 4 easy steps

1: Apply for any credit card with no annual fee. When you receive it, cut it up and throw it away. Every year, apply for another no-fee card, tear it up, and ask to triple the limit on your existing cards.
2: Invest $25 using an app like Stash Invest. Doesn’t matter in what, just pick any 10 stocks and keep them forever. Set it up to transfer $25 every month. Double the amount every year.
3: Don’t buy a house. Pay cash for your car with the profit from your stocks.
4: Retire at 30.

Five reasons why I’m boycotting the vote

In short, here is why I won’t vote: it is a waste of time, it will have no meaningful impact on the outcome even if my candidate wins, it sanctions a fundamentally immoral process, and any notion that third party candidate will make a difference is a fantasy.

Today is the last day to register to vote. Here is why I am boycotting the vote:

First, the only thing which is practically guaranteed to happen from my registering to vote is that I will be drafted for jury duty.
In most places, jury duty is based on voter registration, and since so few people register to vote, there is a good chance you will be drafted within a few months of registering to vote.
I have nothing against serving on a jury, but in the USA, something like 97% of cases are settled before the jury gets to decide anything. It’s quite likely that all that will happen is a day wasted at court. Even if you are picked as a jury pool candidate, if you have any strong opinions either way, you will be disqualified. So forget any chance of having a positive impact on the law – the system is stacked against jurors changing the outcome from what the legal system demands. The conviction rate in the USA is about 90%.

Second, your vote makes no practical difference on the election. Your individual vote is extremely unlikely to make any difference.
In terms of return on investment, the return on several hours of your time is virtually nil.

Third, even if your prefered candidate wins, there is no guarantee that he will make good on his campaign promises. Remember when Obama said his would be “the most transparent administration ever”? How did that go? In fact most politicians are the figurehead of an entrenched bureaucracy, and have no power to change its momentum.

Fourth, the process of voting in a democratic system of governance is inherently immoral. A just social-political system is one which is consistent with human nature and moral principles. The opinion of any number of people does not make the law any moral than an edict by one man. I’m not suggesting dictatorship – only that the process by which the law is made is irrelevant as to the morality of the resulting social-political system. However, violent interference in other people’s lives is immoral – whether it’s done by a thief in a dark alley, or by a majority vote on election day. Any system which permits peoples to vote to coerce upon others is immoral – and so is participation in such a system. Since all actions taken by a government funded by involuntary taxation are coercive, so is any sanction of such a system. This sanction matters: a politician elected by 2% of the public has a lot less mandate than one elected by 98%. Less mandate by politicians means more freedom by the people to build a better society.

Fifth, let’s consider the upcoming 2016 presidential election and the Libertarian option. Mainstream surveys show that majority of public does not like either major party candidate.  Yet despite this, it is virtually certain that one of them will win. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is very unlikely to break into the double digits. If a third party alternative is hopeless against the two most repulsive candidates in living memory, there is truly no chance for a third party to win the election.  Voting is therefore a distraction from superior strategies – such as entrepreneurship or judicial activism.

In short, here is why I won’t vote: it is a waste of time, it will have no meaningful impact on the outcome even if my candidate wins, it sanctions a fundamentally immoral process, and any notion that third party candidate will make a difference is a fantasy.