# David McWilliams for less than 3 pints a week



## Duke of Marmalade (20 Feb 2014)

Any of you Tweeters wake up like me to find that you were mainlining to that Holy Grail, the Road to Financial Independence ?

For less than 3 pints a week David will put you on the path to Financial Independence. I know, unlike David you are probably like me and crudely want to be rich, but try and see it David's way, as a freedom fight.

David reminds us (yet again) that He predicted the Irish property bubble. Indeed He was so prescient that He saw it coming 8 years in advance.

He also predicted the collapse of the Euro back in 2009, I think it was. That hasn't happened yet which just goes to show how much ahead David is of the rest of us.

His demand that all mortgages (not just distressed ones) should be forgiven to boost the economy was rejected by a churlish and ignorant ruling elite.

David is a magnanimous sort of guy, He can give credit were credit is due. He hailed the Bank Guarantee as a Master Stroke of the MOF, modestly waiving any temptation to claim it as His own brainchild. 

Jayz! I'd pay the full price of three pints for this one.


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Feb 2014)

Hi Duke

I thought that this had been discussed recently, but can't find it. 

Apparently he had a newsletter 10 years ago as well


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Feb 2014)

Doesn't he have columns in one or two newspapers?  

What additional insights could he have every day? 

Brendan


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## Setanta12 (20 Feb 2014)

Sorry, David who ?  Is he that Little Britain guy?  

(I jest!)


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## DB74 (20 Feb 2014)

Brendan Burgess said:


> What additional insights could he have every day?



Just look at the Bargains section of boards.ie - loads of money saving opportunites there. He only needs to rip-off a couple of those and we're all laughing


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Feb 2014)

I doubt somehow he will be telling us about BOGOF offers in Lidl. 

Brendan


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## Steven Barrett (20 Feb 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Any of you Tweeters wake up like me to find that you were mainlining to that Holy Grail, the Road to Financial Independence ?
> 
> For less than 3 pints a week David will put you on the path to Financial Independence. I know, unlike David you are probably like me and crudely want to be rich, but try and see it David's way, as a freedom fight.
> 
> ...



Yeah, we are constantly reminded of that. We are never told that loads of people bought and sold properties in the meantime and made lots of money out of it while he was telling everyone that the sky was falling down. 


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## Gary (21 Feb 2014)

*Fooled By Randomness*

I read that letter linked at the top of this thread. I thought it was a joke. I’m still not even sure if it is genuine. Daily updates on investment strategy? As someone that has spent a long time trying to preach about the dangers of obsessing over short term market movements, I find this depressing. 

To his credit, David is very articulate and usually is engaging in his musings, whatever issues one might take with his analysis. But this is no better than the crack dealer stalking schools. 

David knows full well that market movements over short time periods are completely random. He is purporting to try and make sense of meaningless noise. And worse, charge for it. Would you pay someone for predictions on coin tossing?

Before listening to the forecasts of any economist, I would urge people to first look up a guy called Philip Tetlock. He conducted a 15 year study on the forecasting ability of so-called experts across a range of disciplines, including economics. His conclusions are sobering. I wrote a piece about it and our obsession with the future in the valuesinstitute.org called Financial Serendipity (not sure how to attach links!). 

Whilst I understand the yearning for certainty about the future, we would be far better off accepting the role of chance in our lives. Nassim Taleb’s book, fooled by randomness, is about being fooled into thinking something which is random, actually has some meaning. 

More fool the listener (subscriber) than the predictor in this case. McWilliams is the one making money out of it.


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## Duke of Marmalade (21 Feb 2014)

_Gary_,  I too at first thought it was a prank but I checked before posting on AAM.  I use _Dropbox_ to post links to documents on my computer, there may be other ways.  If your document is already on the internet then there is a direct facility for posting links.  I would like to read your note.


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## Brendan Burgess (21 Feb 2014)

He mentions it on his website, so it's presumably not a prank. 

http://globalmacro360.com/subscription/

The good news is that you can get a week's free trial. 

Although, it's free, I am not sure it's worth it. 

Here are the recent topics: 

Fog on the Bosphorus
The Brazilians of Europe 
Miss Sarajevo 
Tinder Box

and he obviously isn't reluctant to slag off his subscribers either: 

"The market for lemons" 

Brendan


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## Duke of Marmalade (21 Feb 2014)

Seems like mandatory viewing for personnel in NSA, not so sure how it would help your 65 year old couple with investing their 100K


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## joe sod (23 Feb 2014)

Its very expensive for someone that really has no reputation in managing money. Its one thing to write articles in the media about the economy in general to advising people on particular invesments. If you want to go down this road there is far better and cheaper advice available mainly international though.


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## Rory Gillen (26 Feb 2014)

Buffett's quote about sticking to your 'area of expertise' comes to mind. Offering to make sense of what markets are saying is one service, but suggesting to create and protect capital is quite another! In fairness, it looks like a market news flow-driven website service, which he is perfectly able to deliver, but perhaps he should drop the 'create and preserve capital' title at the top. The website does not carry a note saying that he or his company has been approved by the Central Bank to provide investment advice (authorised advisor) via such a website.


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