
Episode two of CLEC James Talks: starting from an action camera and moving to why home is not a place for arguing who is right, why yielding is the strength of "the highest good is like water," and why understanding needs time to undergo a chemical reaction, along with a revision of the QQQI cash-flow reserve from 10 years at 10% to 12 years stress-tested at 8%.


Episode one of James's new podcast channel "CLEC James Talks": the purpose and format of the show, a recap of U.S. equities and the yen on August 4, and an in-depth comparison of the policy mistakes behind Japan's property bubble with the cultural and institutional differences in how Japan and America handled debt deflation.


A student who works in consulting and studies Chinese fate analysis writes with three reflections: taking the first step requires courage and largeness of heart, prenuptial agreements are really about the law of attraction, and meeting a big drawdown on her first investment was a gift; James replies that asking too many whys wastes a life, and that a parent's contradictory thoughts issue an instruction to heaven.


A reader investing steadily in the Nasdaq is blocked by a sense of not deserving it, afraid that heaven will take the good away. James replies that this mindset is common and comes from the old conditioning of Asian culture: being wealthy is a gift and being happy is a human right.


A reader asks whether to sell the family's only home and hold the proceeds long term in a Nasdaq 100 index fund. James replies: sell, and the sooner the better. No school district is worth a house, and parents who stop competing raise children who do not have to compete either.


TLT has returned only about 4% a year over nearly twenty years, and anyone who bought the 2020 peak has watched it slide from 164 to 85. Avoid long-term, corporate, junk and structured bonds; the only ones to hold are short-term funds such as BOXX, SGOV, BIL and Taiwan's 00865B.
