My goal for these blog posts is to provide useful information so that you can make more accurate decisions.

• Noise includes facts/data/news that cannot be processed into useful information  (<— WHAT MOST STUFF IS)
• Useful information can be used to make more accurate decisions (<— WHAT I’M TRYING TO PROVIDE)

Since there is an endless and ever-growing amount of things to learn, I hope that these posts are helpful in summarizing important topics related to investing.

Here are three of my most recent learnings from the content I’ve been consuming (books, podcasts, articles, newsletters, company call/presentation transcripts).

#1

Daly, Patricia A. “Agricultural Employment: Has the Decline Ended?” Monthly Labor Review, vol. 104, no. 11, Nov. 1981, pp. 11-17. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1981/11/art2full.pdf

Quote: “In 1870, almost 50 percent of employed persons worked in agriculture and one farmworker could only supply five people with farm products. By 1980, just 4 percent of the employed were in agriculture, and each one supplied food for nearly 70 others.” – Bureau of Labor Statistics

While clearly not a perfect analogy, I found this data point helpful in contextualizing the risk to the U.S. economy posed by AI reducing the number of jobs available for humans. Based on the above example, rather than accepting unemployment as their new status quo, it seems more likely that anyone whose job gets displaced by AI will search for (and hopefully find) something else to do in much the same way that people who used to work on farms have since found new lines of work. Based on current/expected shortages, it seems like plumbing and electrical work could be decent places to start.

#2

“Why Swiss Watches Made by Richard Mille, Patek Philippe Are So Expensive | 60 Minutes.” 60 Minutes, CBS News, 7 Dec. 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWX0V9BQe_A. 

Quote
Max Büsser: “And then 2020, COVID happened. We had hundreds, thousands of people contacting us saying, ‘How can I get one of your watches?’”

Jon Wertheim: “Could you accommodate this demand?”

Max Büsser: “No, because we don’t wanna grow.”

……………………………………………………………

This segment was 60 Minutes at its finest. I loved learning about how these premium watchmakers care so much more about the quality of their work and the enjoyment of their lives rather than trying to maximize their potential business profits. This approach resonates very well with my hope for Birchwood in that we will (potentially soon) be limiting the number of clients that we add so that we can maintain high quality service and advice, even if this means we might leave some money on the table by doing so.

#3

Mallaby, Sebastian. More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite. Penguin Press, 2010.

Quote: “Lehman’s share price was down more than 40 percent since the start of the year, and the firm’s worried leaders felt obliged to counterattack. They accused hedge funds of a reckless policy of ‘short and distort,’ and Lehman’s combative chief executive, Richard Fuld, virtually declared war. ‘I will hurt the shorts, and that is my goal,’ he vowed at the firm’s annual meeting.” – Sebastian Mallaby

This anecdote was a great reminder of how much investors should be concerned if/when public company executives complain about short sellers. While some short sellers do indeed use questionable tactics in my view (i.e. short a stock, publish a nasty report, cover the short position after making a quick buck), my perspective is that short sellers in the aggregate should be viewed as helping to keep market prices more efficient than they otherwise would be.