Joseph's "Just My Thoughts"

The most important rule in investing is not to lose your initial capital. Making money comes later. If you lose 50% of your principal, the loss rate is 50%, but to recover that principal, you need a 100% return. This is because the baseline of your return—the principal—has already been halved. Many people tend to think that if they’ve lost 50%, they only need a 50% return to break even. However, this is a misunderstanding of the starting point. In investing, the baseline is always the original principal. The principal after a loss is no longer the same; it’s already in the past. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”

Capitalistic thinking is not about domination by capital; it refers to financial thinking. The economy revolves around exchange. The performance of the counterparty corresponding to what I want to exchange is called ‘ consideration ,’ and a ‘ transaction ’ is the accumulation of added value by exchanging equal considerations. However, among transactions, this consideration is not relative but absolute; trading solely in one fiat currency as consideration is termed ‘ finance .’ When I obtain a loan, the bank lends me fiat currency (the bank’s consideration), but my obligation is to return the fiat principal plus the contracted interest . The consideration in this transaction is unidirectional, involving only one fiat currency. In contrast, when I buy shoes, the seller has an obligation to hand over the shoes to me, and I have a counterpart obligation to pay in fiat currency. Once these two considerations are exchanged, an industrial transaction occurs. However, as noted earlier, in f...

‘ Capital ’ means ‘ Principal .’ What does ‘Principal’ mean in business ? The ultimate goal of any business is to create wealth. Wealth serves as the foundation for creating value, and that value must be generated solely through production. To produce, the cost must be invested first; the source of that cost is referred to as ‘Principal.’ In other words, the result of a transaction through trading is ‘ revenues ,’ and if costs and expenses are subtracted from sales, what remains is ‘ profit .’ If costs and expenses exceed revenues, it results in a losing trade; if they are lower, it results in a profitable trade. Therefore, principal serves as the benchmark for profitability ; in other words, it is referred to as capital. Whether a business is good or bad is determined by its profitability. If the principal is insufficient, borrowing capital becomes necessary, which is termed “ debt .” Just as the number of principals capable of producing tankers differs from those that can create ...

Let’s say someone bought a building with a bank loan. If the landlord fails to pay the interest, the bank is forced to pay the principal. If the principal isn’t paid, the bank can put the building up for auction, even though the landlord owns it. Interest is the cost of borrowing money over time. The reason I can purchase a building without using my own money is that I can leverage time through interest. When we say time is money, it doesn’t just mean to save time and live diligently. It emphasizes that time truly represents money. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”

Warren Buffett, who has amassed 99% of his wealth since the age of 50, revealed that the secret lies in “compound.” When you lend money, interest is added to the principal as income. Initially, interest is applied only to the principal, but compound interest is applied to both the principal and the accumulated interest. Therefore, at first, it seems negligible, but over time, significant wealth growth takes place. The same principle applies to reading: even if your reading speed is slow, consistently reading just a few books each day can lead to a wealth of knowledge. After a year, this accumulated knowledge creates a network effect, allowing you to quickly absorb new information. Consequently, your reading speed increases dramatically, leading to an exponential growth in the volume of material you can handle. This exemplifies the compound interest effect. Even small, consistent actions taken daily can build up and create a compound interest effect over time. Cartoonist Lee Hyun-se sta...

Warren Buffett’s assets were once estimated at $82 billion. 90% of these assets have been earned by Warren Buffett since he turned 65. The way to make money over time without labor is through finance; it’s an interest. One of the most economically effective methods is ‘compounding.’ This involves deriving interest from the principal and then earning interest again on the total of the interest and principal, continually repeating this process, making compounding the most efficient money-making method discovered by humanity. The same applies to stock investments; to achieve this compounding effect, you need to earn at least a 4% annual return. However, this is only valid for long-term investments like those of Warren Buffett. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”