Saturday, May 19, 2007

Looking for blind spots

“You can get away with more than you deserve in life by being slightly more rational.”
-- Charlie Munger

I am back to urban lifestyle after a week of national reservist. Back to reading and blogging. First, I shall blog on looking for blind spots

One can be more rational by knowing that blind spots (or more technically, unknown unknowns or known unknowns) always exist. And one should try to look for these blind spots, especially in financial stuffs. Hopefully, not much important stones are not left unturned.

Why do I say so? Just look at this article on poverty business. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_21/b4035001.htm The articles show that people may have been outsmart by lending corporations because they do not look for blind spots before they decide. They may forget to read the clauses or ask how the other party benefits when they do business with you. Or perhaps, they didn’t know to ask the salesperson to convert the interest rates into effective interest rate per annum.

In another blog, I read that a lot of people are unaware of the high managerial fees in Cityspring. And the fees are clearly shown in the ipo prospectus of Cityspring. This is another case to illustrate why one should detect for unknowns to avoid negative surprises.

Charlie Munger may be right that you can benefit more than you deserve by being more rational. And you can be more rational by first trying to look for blind spots.

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