Apple Brittle -- June 27, 2018

I haven't watched any television or followed the market (except very, very peripherally) for the past two weeks. I had planned to stay away for a week or so until we got through the "silliness," as Hillary would say.

But I haven't missed televions and it's likely I will avoid television and the market for most of the rest of the summer. Obviously it's impossible to completely avoid the market. A couple days ago my wife mentioned in passing that the market had given up all its gains for 2018.

Buying opportunities.

I continue to check my cash accounts -- the only "new" money I get these days is from dividends. And when my cash accounts, via dividends, reach at least $100, I buy more shares of whatever I'm accumulating at the moment. Yes, even as little as $100. Fully invested. Commissions are so inconsequential these days.

My one concern: AAPL.

It's hard to believe that AAPL could falter, but without question, the hardware business that the Apple Corp is in is strictly a commodity. There are many, many competitors.

Our middle granddaughter is taking coding classes this summer. The engineers teaching them want the students to use the Firefox browser when coding in Java. If they don't have Firefox, their next (and only other) option is Google Chome.

Our middle granddaughter says she won't use Firefox because it is not as secure as the other browsers (she is eleven years old), and she won't use Safari despite the fact she is using an Apple computer.

I only use Firefox. Even though I am an Apple fanboy, I don't use Safari. It seems slow. But maybe that's just me.

In California public schools, the recommended laptop for students is the Google Chromebook and the Google Chrome browser, of course.

Apple used to have the "monopoly" on public schools, but apparently not in California -- were Apple is based.

Apple has the ecosystem. That's hard to beat.

But Apple music: others can do it. I think Amazon with its Amazon store could give Apple a run for its money with regard to music.

Apps? One would think that Apple has the market cornered but it certainly seems Google and Amazon are doing a better job with "home apps."

I'm worried that as good as Apple is, it's brittle.

Apple brittle (first definition: hard but liable to break or shatter easily).

I don't worry about anything else.

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The Literature Page

Having given up television, I have more time to read. I set a goal to read one consequential book each week for the rest of my life.

For me, to read one consequential book each week for the rest of my life, requires a "different way of doing it."

I've started my first consequential book (which I will talk about later). The problem I have, is that I generally tire of just reading one book at a time; I need to have a couple to choose from at any given time.

So, this is how one solves the problem. One Monday of each week, I check out a consequential book from the city library. I then return it the following Monday, regardless how far I get through it. If it's really, really good, I will finish it in a week. Whether it's good or no, by the end of the week, I've pretty much "figured out" the book. I know what it's about, I know where it's headed, and if necessary, I can always skim through the rest of the book.

If that makes sense.

The book I've been reading off and on for the past several months for pleasure is Edmund de Waal's The White Road (my own copy, not a library copy). I think he (or the publisher) designed the book jacket after the Beatle's White album. It's not a book I want to read quickly. I want to savor it. Read it slowly, and start a chapter over now and then. Get distracted and look something up on the internet that de Waal mentions.

But the consequential book I am reading, which I just checked out from the library two days ago: The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, Max Boot, c. 2018.

I think this is the first historical book I've read on Vietnam. I've read very, very few books on Vietnam (I can think of only Tim O'Brien's books as examples). the  about Vietnam, but it's a biography of Edward Lansdale.

Incredibly good book if one is interested in this sort of thing.

There are three themes interwoven through the book that interest me:

• the actual history of the development of the CIA and the problems that arose that still haunt us today (think Iran and Guatemala)
• the tragedy of Vietnam (the subtitle of the book); so many missed opportunities (20/20 hindsight but lack of flexibility is the common theme)
• the personal life of Lansdale -- personal affairs are called "personal" for a reason; the #MeToo movement cannot be funneled into a sound bite; humans are complex social creatures; men are from Mars; women are from Venus; limerence;

With regard to the second bullet, my worldview is that President Obama let the US intelligence agency and some of his closest advisors develop and execute his foreign policy; was very duplicitous and disingenuous, and certainly not as bright as his supporters would like one to believe; as modern as he was, he was very "old school" when it came to foreign affairs; he was not flexible.

President Trump, again, this is my worldview, ... nope .. I'm not going to get started.

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Perspective

Photo taken at the end of the two-day water polo tournament in nearby Southlake, TX. Arianna's team won all four of their games and most of them by a lopsided margin.

Sophia was there to watch all four games over the two days.

They were enjoying a post-tournament cupcake.