A motto for 2009? “Don’t be Stupid”

Thanks to my good friend, Sam Foster for turning me on to this article in the WSJ. The OP-ED piece by Daniel Henninger highlight’s one of today’s biggest issues for an investor – how to sort through the overwhelming amount of data and capitalize on the fact, while others are swapping cocktail conversation about the fiction.

Daniel goes on to say

“I’m still mesmerized by the virtually uncountable number of intelligent individuals worldwide who were revealed as dumb in 2008. What happened to them? What if mass dumbing down is now the norm?”

The Economist recently ran an online debate about the same issue – is our society getting smarter or dumber over time?

What are you thoughts?

Update to the NAR code of Ethics

The National Association of Realtors recently updated their code of ethics. Major changes involve disclosure of other parties when multiple offers come in… Wikipedia states that Ethical Codes are “The effectiveness of such codes of ethics depends on the extent to which to management supports them with sanctions and rewards. ”

So what do you think – do the Realtor Code of Ethics protect the consumer?