The Greater Fool: Brad Gobright and the Blinding Shine of Originality

The Greater Fool: Brad Gobright and the Blinding Shine of Originality
Author: Lucas Roman
Publisher: Di Angelo Publications
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2022-11-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1955690383

For as long as stories have been told, we’ve had a peculiar fascination with the wayward among us, with those we call the fools. Our histories are flush with those who stand at the edge of reason, of those who see what others cannot. Among the archetypes, the Greater Fool holds a most special place within the canon. Standing there unphased after the dust and the punchlines settle, the Greater Fool is the one who hangs on when all others let go, the one who turns into the storm when all common sense and foot traffic points the other way. Where the world around them sees only an empty promise, the Greater Fool maintains there is yet worth to be discovered still. Intrepid and unwitting as they may be, they’re also the ones we need. As irony would have it, in every Greater Fool there’s just enough magic to pull us back in their direction. Just enough light for truth to shine an arc of redemption. This is the story of Brad Gobright, one such anomaly who shined for us all a most special and unending light.

Greater Fool

Greater Fool
Author: Garth Turner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: Real estate investment
ISBN: 9781554701087

A young couple in Toronto starts house-hunting with a $450,000 budget and ends up with a $700,000 home, after losing fifteen bidding wars. In Vancouver the average bungalow soars past $900,000. In Saskatoon, house values rock higher 56 per cent in one year. At the same time, real estate values in the US plunge for the first time since the Great Depression. Millions of families are forced out of their homes. Canadians are told it can't happen here, while first-time buyers outside Toronto sign up for monster houses with virtually no down payment and 40-year mortgages for 98 per cent of the cost. When the average family can no longer afford the average home, how can so many people be deluded into believing a boom will last forever'when none has before? How could we have put so much money into something we might never be able to sell, except to a greater fool? Truth is, homeowners and homebuyers have been seduced by a cabal made up of real estate marketers, builders, lenders and bankers, along with a pliant media, to buy, buy, buy. Canada has its own, hidden debt crisis just as dire as the subprime mortgage fiasco, and the same self-dealing industry tactics have led us to put more than 80 per cent of our net worth into a single asset, ignoring the obvious threats and repeating the disastrous mistakes of others. Are we next? Yes.

More Fool Me

More Fool Me
Author: Stephen Fry
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2015-06-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1468312286

The British comedian recounts the highs and lows of his wild years: “A gifted writer with a perfect sense of comic timing and anecdote-spinning . . . Lots of fun.” —Kirkus Reviews By his early thirties, Stephen Fry—writer, comedian, star of stage and screen—had, as they say, “made it.” Much loved on British television, author of a critically acclaimed and bestselling first novel, with a glamorous and glittering cast of friends, he had more work than was perhaps good for him. As the ‘80s drew to a close, he began to burn the candle at both ends. Writing and recording by day, and haunting a never-ending series of celebrity parties, drinking dens, and poker games by night, he was a high functioning addict. He was so busy, so distracted by the high life, that he could hardly see the inevitable, headlong tumble that must surely follow . . . Filled with raw, electric extracts from his diaries of the time, More Fool Me is a brilliant, eloquent account by a man driven to create and to entertain—revealing a side to him he has long kept hidden. “Fry is an astonishingly charming fellow: erudite, playful and capable of writing in a style so intimate that readers can picture themselves sitting next to him at a splendid dinner party as he rather one-sidedly entertains the entire table.” —Slate

Great Fool

Great Fool
Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 1996-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0824862708

Taigu Ryokan (1759-1831) remains one of the most popular figures in Japanese Buddhist history. Despite his religious and artistic sophistication, Ryokan referred to himself as "Great Fool" and refused to place himself within the cultural elite of his age. In contrast to the typical Zen master of his time, who presided over a large monastery, trained students, and produced recondite religious treatises, Ryokan followed a life of mendicancy in the countryside. Instead of delivering sermons, he expressed himself through kanshi (poems composed in classical Chinese) and waka and could typically be found playing with the village children in the course of his daily rounds of begging. Great Fool is the first study in a Western language to offer a comprehensive picture of the legendary poet-monk and his oeuvre. It includes not only an extensive collection of the master's kanshi, topically arranged to facilitate an appreciation of Ryokan's colorful world, but selections of his waka, essays, and letters. The volume also presents for the first time in English the Ryokan zenji kiwa (Curious Accounts of the Zen Master Ryokan), a firsthand source composed by a former student less than sixteen years after Ryokan's death. Although it lacks chronological order, the Curious Account is invaluable for showing how Ryokan was understood and remembered by his contemporaries. It consists of colorful anecdotes and episodes, sketches from Ryokan's everyday life. To further assist the reader, three introductory essays approach Ryokan from the diverse perspectives of his personal history and literary work.

Getting Rich Your Own Way

Getting Rich Your Own Way
Author: Brian Tracy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2004-08-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780471652649

"Save yourself ten years of hard work. Read Brian's powerful book and let him show you the shortcut to success. He'll show you the fastest way for you to get rich." -Robert Allen bestselling author, Multiple Streams of Income "Millions of people start with nothing and become wealthy as the result of doing certain things in a certain way, over and over again. This book by Brian Tracy shows you how you can achieve all your financial goals, starting from wherever you are today." -Jack Canfield coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Soul(r) series and The Success Principles "This is the only book you need to read to become wealthy! It is loaded with practical ideas and strategies to propel you onwards and upwards." -Nido Qubein Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Company, and founder, National Speakers Association Foundation "Another great book from Brian Tracy. Tangible, practical ideas that will make you money and make you rich!" -Bill Bachrach President, Bachrach & Associates, Inc. "Brian Tracy has put together a masterpiece of common sense for getting rich. If you wish a different life, commit now to different actions-read this book!" -H. J. (Jim) Graham President and CEO, Cyber Broadcast One, Inc. "Brian Tracy shows you how unlimited wealth starts in the mind, and how anyone can focus their time and energy to earn millions. It's the readable, riveting primer for countless new American fortunes." -Peter Montoya CEO, Peter Montoya Inc.

The Motley Fool Investment Guide

The Motley Fool Investment Guide
Author: David Gardner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2001-01-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0743216113

For Making Sense of Investing Today...the Fully Revised and Expanded Edition of the Bestselling The Motley Fool Investment Guide Today, with the Internet, anyone can be an informed investor. Once you learn to tune out the hype and focus on meaningful factors, you can beat the Street. The Motley Fool Investment Guide, completely revised and updated with clear and witty explanations, deciphers all the new information -- from evaluating individual stocks to creating a diverse investment portfolio. David and Tom Gardner have investing ideas for you -- no matter how much time or money you have. This new edition of The Motley Fool Investment Guide is built for today's investor, sophisticate and novice alike, with updated information on: Finding high-growth stocks that will beat the market over the long term Identifying volatile young companies that traditional valuation measures may miss Using Fool.com and the Internet to locate great sources of useful information

Fortune's Fool

Fortune's Fool
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: LUNA
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2008-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1426814828

The seventh daughter of the Sea King, Ekaterina is more than a pampered princess-she's also the family spy. Which makes her the perfect emissary to check out interesting happenings in the neighboring kingdom…and nothing interests her more than Sasha, the seventh son of the king of Belrus. Ekaterina suspects he's far from the fool people think him. But before she can find out what lies beneath his facade, she is kidnapped! Trapped in a castle at the mercy of a possessive Jinn, Ekaterina knows her chances of being found are slim. Now fortune, a fool and a paper bird are the only things she can count on-along with her own clever mind and intrepid heart.…

The Motley Fool Investment Workbook

The Motley Fool Investment Workbook
Author: David Gardner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2003-05-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 074324561X

Drawing on lessons learned in the past few turbulent years, the revised Motley Fool Investment Workbook shows how The Motley Fool's popular investment strategies continue to help regular people beat Wall Street's best money managers -- in good times and in bad. Updated to reflect today's whipsaw economy, you will learn how to evaluate a company's financial performance, which mutual funds make sense, and where to find havens for your retirement savings. Demonstrating how to value companies in a roller-coaster era -- and providing more useful work sheets and space for tracking goals than ever before -- this new edition gives you all the information and calculations you need to make smart investment moves now, including how to: Figure out how much money you have to invest Devise a sensible -- and profitable -- investment strategy Select winning stocks Purchase stocks in the cheapest and fastest way possible Protect your investments and learn when -- if ever -- to let them go Brimming with worksheets, charts, and real-world examples -- all wrapped up by The Fool's trademark sense of humor -- The Motley Fool Investment Workbook will help you take control of your own financial destiny one step -- and one dollar -- at a time.

Fool's Gold

Fool's Gold
Author: Gillian Tett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2009-05-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1439100756

From award-winning Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, who enraged Wall Street leaders with her news-breaking warnings of a crisis more than a year ahead of the curve, Fool’s Gold tells the astonishing unknown story at the heart of the 2008 meltdown. Drawing on exclusive access to J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a tightly bonded team of bankers known on Wall Street as the “Morgan Mafia,” as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of other key players, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Gillian Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team’s bold ideas for a whole new kind of financial alchemy helped to ignite a revolution in banking, and how that revolution escalated wildly out of control. The story begins with the intense Morgan brainstorming session in 1994 beside a pool in Boca Raton, where the team cooked up a dazzling new idea for the exotic financial product known as credit derivatives. That idea would rip around the banking world, catapult Morgan to the top of the turbocharged derivatives trade, and fuel an extraordinary banking boom that seemed to have unleashed banks from ages-old constraints of risk. But when the Morgan team’s derivatives dream collided with the housing boom—and was perverted through hubris, delusion, and sheer greed by titans of banking that included Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Merrill Lynch—catastrophe followed. Tett’s access to Dimon and the J.P. Morgan leaders who so skillfully steered their bank away from the wild excesses of others sheds invaluable light not only on the untold story of how they engineered their bank’s escape from carnage, but also on how possible it was for the larger banking world, regulators, and rating agencies to have spotted, and heeded, the terrible risks of a meltdown. A tale of blistering brilliance and willfully blind ambition, Fool’s Gold is both a rare journey deep inside the arcane and wildly competitive world of high finance and a vital contribution to understanding how the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression was perpetrated.