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I’m a pretty serious student of the financial markets these days. The other morning on CNBC, they were doing a little shtick where they were simulating a poker game with some big name hedge fund managers. All the while they were (sort of) playing, they were discussing the similarities between poker and trading. These hedge fund managers had also done well in some professional poker tournaments.

This little vignette solidified something I’d been thinking about for a while. That is, everyone is a gambler.

When you study the markets and people who make a business of trading in the markets, you slowly become aware that everything is simply a game of probabilities, risk and reward (for more of my thoughts on this, you can check out a post a wrote a while back specifically on this subject). These very same principles that allow an individual (or a professional) to make money in the markets also guide the games of chance at the casinos. They also guide pretty much every other decision we make every day of our lives.

When asked about the similarities of trading and playing poker, one of the hedge fund guys explained that in both cases, you are presented with a certain amount of information, but there is always a piece of information that you don’t have. You have to make a decision on how to handle that missing piece of information based on your understanding of the information you do have. You make a decision, place your bets, and hope for the best.

Honestly, can you say that this is different than anything else in life? There is no certainty about tomorrow. We are always dealing with an incomplete information set and making decisions the best we can based on what we know. When it gets right down to it, we always have to move forward, choose our path, and hope for the best.

This is why I say everyone is a gambler. So, why do we consider gambling to be “bad”? What makes tying up hundreds of thousands of retirement dollars in equity-based mutual funds (which can lose their value) any more virtuous than hitting the casinos? Or, what about the person who invests a large portion of their net worth into a new business venture — are they somehow more noble than the blackjack player? I have some thoughts, but I’d like to hear yours first in the comments. What do you think?

Yesterday, we went to out to the downtown living tour here in OKC. This was a cool event with 11 downtown residential properties having simultaneous open houses so people could tour and see how living in downtown OKC is shaping up.

Since I live near downtown, I am very interested in how the residential life in downtown is coming along. I am really excited for the development that is happening and hope there is great success with occupancy so that we will have continued development as well, and hopefully even get some more retail options and even an urban grocery store some time (Whole Foods, anyone??).

Anyway, there were some great properties to see. Maybe a third of them were older properties and buildings that are being restored and converted to residential, with the rest being new construction. The new stuff is primarily over in the triangle north of Bricktown with the older buildings being in downtown and midtown.

Personally, my favorite was the old Sieber Hotel in midtown. This very old six story structure is being nicely restored to residential rental apartments with some upscale features. There are crown moldings, modern kitchens, tiled bathrooms, and some beautiful windows. I just don’t think there’s a substitute for a historical structure, no matter how nicely you build something new.

Hadden Hall was another property in midtown that looks like it will be similar to the Sieber, but it was just beginning its restoration so there was nothing really to see yet.

I’m not a big T.G.I. Friday’s fan, but I was intrigued when I saw their new campaign for the “Right Portion, Right Price” menu. Those of you who know how I feel about portion sizes will find it no surprise that I love this campaign. I love the name, in fact. I think it’s great branding.

The tagline is: “Save that stuffed feeling for your wallet.” Nice. They are not only promoting the idea of smaller portions, but also charging less money for the right amount of food.

I’ve written before about what happened to Ruby Tuesday’s when they tried to reduce portion sizes. I think the difference there was that they didn’t change the price, at least not enough. I think this T.G.I. Friday’s campaign will be a good test of whether the public will accept a mainline chain restaurant trying to serve them a correct portion size, or if they will demand to stuff themselves beyond what is reasonable.

I am very interested to see the results of this campaign.

NPR’s Morning Edition is doing a series this week on borrowing money. Seems like a good topic since the economy is in a big bunch of hurt, caused mainly by over-extended credit.

Monday’s episode really struck me as they explained how research shows that the average American today saves about 1/2 of 1 percent of their income. That’s 0.5%. That’s like … nothing. In 1982, Americans saved an average of 11% of their income. From 11% to 0.5% in about 25 years. That is staggering.

So, I’ve decided to start my own series here on the blog. I’ll be covering how to manage money. This post is step one and in it I am going to share with you the secret to financial bliss. Wait for it … here it is:

Spend less than you earn.

How much less? I say at least 10% toward retirement, then another 10% at least in non-retirement accounts. All together, that’s 20%. More would be even better.

“But what am I saving it for,” you ask. See, that’s the big question. Why save money if you’re not ever going to spend it? You can’t take it with you, right?

But here’s the little secret — it takes money to make money. If you save up money, you can then invest that money into efforts that will produce more money, until eventually you can earn substantial income off of the assets you have accumulated. This is what builds financial freedom.

I don’t believe that enormous wealth is necessarily a good goal to shoot for, but I do believe financial freedom is a good thing which can be achieved by most anyone with the discipline to spend less than they earn.

A McDonald’s hamburger costs around 80 cents, but when my parents were young, I think they were around a dime or something. But nobody complains about the price of a McDonald’s hamburger. Prices rise. It happens.

People my age grew up with gas that was considered expensive any time it broke $1. Now, there are growing outcries as the price tops $3.50 (regular unleaded, OKC prices). True, this over 300% increase has happened largely over the past eight years. Such a rapid move up in prices on a product we all use is sure to get attention.

But here’s why I think gas prices aren’t really that high — because demand for gas hasn’t fallen off. Most reports have shown that throughout this dramatic move up, people have continued to consume gas at the same rates, and I’ve heard some speculate that oil will have to reach $150 per barrel before demand really lessens. I know I’m just an outsider looking at this from a limited perspective, but I also know that in my own life and the lives of most people I know, our driving habits haven’t truly changed much in reaction to the rising costs.

So if gas can increase 300% without seeing much change in demand, I don’t believe it’s overpriced. Rather, I believe it was artificially under-priced previously.

When demand falls, prices will stabilize. But for demand to fall, we’ll have to make some changes. We’ll have to start treating energy like any other budgeted item — separating what we “need” from what we “want” and managing our consumption accordingly. Businesses might have to do more web meetings to reduce their airfare costs. Families might have to recognize that every trip, even in town, has a price tag, then let that impact the number of trips taken.

How do you plan to adjust your energy consumption in response to the rising prices?

I’ve taken an interest in our country’s healthcare system lately. It seems to be quite a big topic with the presidential candidates and, from what I can tell with my limited perspective, it seems like it could use a good bit of help.

One thing that I’ve found interesting in the last couple of days is a series of stories on NPR’s All Things Considered where they are taking a look at the health care systems of other wealthy nations. On Monday, they reviewed Japan’s system and on Tuesday, they reported on Taiwan. I look forward to hearing more stories in this series.

It is certainly helpful and interesting to look at what other nations are doing, but it really doesn’t solve anything. Each system just has its own set of pros and cons. It simply reinforces the fact that healthcare is a huge and far-reaching issue that will never be easily solved, yet somehow, I think our nation is going to have to address it soon.

Since I have such a limited perspective, I try to refrain from making many judgments, but I do have two thoughts to share.

First, the report on Taiwan indicated that the Taiwanese government spends about 6% of its GDP on healthcare, and provides complete government-sponsored coverage for all citizens. The US spends closer to 15%, and we only cover people over 65 and we don’t even provide as much coverage for them. They also indicated that the percentage the US spends is pretty high compared to most wealthy nations. Now, I’m not saying that this is apples to apples, but it is at least a bit of an indication that our nation could afford to be more efficient in its provision for health care.

Second, I am a pretty big-time fiscal conservative, believing that a free market is the best path to growth and prosperity, yet I can’t help but think healthcare doesn’t react the same to an open market as other industries. The supply and demand relationship doesn’t seem to work the same way when people have to have the product (healthcare) in order to live. What is the value of a surgery if that surgery will save your life? Can an open and free market system balance these issues? I tend to think that healthcare to some degree will have to have heavier government regulation and even possibly government-sponsored programs. Of course, this really isn’t all that novel since we already do have government healthcare through medicare, it just is limited to people over 65.

So, what am I saying? I’m saying that I hope there are a whole lot of people smarter and more well informed than me working on this issue, because it is very complex, unusual, and in need of some help. And no matter what sound bites the presidential candidates from either party throw out, I seriously doubt there are any simple solutions to this problem.

It strikes me how we, as a people, are so reactionary. A bridge collapses somewhere in the US, and all of a sudden everyone becomes concerned with bridge safety. Now, it’s not a bad thing to be concerned with bridge safety, but all of the effort and attention that bridge safety will now receive will have to pull attention and effort from some other area. That is, until another tragedy happens.

It seems to me that if we could ever learn that it is impossible to predict the future, and that extreme events will inevitably happen from time to time, we could all become a little more tempered and controlled in our reactions. This would enable us to maintain a consistent and calm approach across the gamut of our circumstances, rather than throwing bursts of energy here and there based on the emergency of the moment.

I think this applies to so many things in life. It affects the way we view politics, finance, the economy and other issues on a mass scale, but I also think it applies to individuals as well. Couldn’t we all learn to better control our reactions when we encounter extreme circumstances? If we could, wouldn’t it help us to maintain better balance and consistency in our lives?

Over the past four months, I’ve been scrounging whatever free time I could muster up to work on a new design for EatAroundOKC.com, my Oklahoma City Restaurants blog. I finally got it launched last Sunday and that is a big relief. Please check it out.

My main objective in the new design was to enlarge it to fit a 1024 width screen. The previous design was locked for 800 width and, of course, in the past two years the move toward larger monitors has been great. My stats show that now over 90% of visitors to the site are using 1024 or above. I figured it was time to move on up.

The wider width accommodates a three column layout, allowing me to put the category navigation on the left and freeing up space in the right-hand sidebar for some more interesting features including a list of the highest rated and most popular posts on the site.

My favorite feature of the new design is the font style. The body font is 15px Georgia, a bit larger-than-life but I love it. The headlines are even more oversized. I think this gives the site a very readable and even newspaper-like quality.

Though the new design is really nothing amazing to look at (my design skills are mediocre at best), I am proud of the code behind the design. The CSS was rewritten in its entirety, starting with a blank page, and every line of the markup was scoured to remove anything unnecessary. The original design was the first CSS design I’d ever written, so there was a lot of waste. The new design makes better use of the cascade and the code is a lot leaner. It’s truly a pleasure to look at so please, go ahead and enjoy a peak at the code.

Anyway, I am glad to finally get the new design launched. Aside from some server issues, everything has gone very smoothly. Please take a look and let me know what you think. And please read along and comment on EatAroundOKC as well.

I went to see Art Garfunkel at the Philharmonic Pops concert last Friday night. My company was the major sponsor for the event, so we got some free tickets (thanks guys!).

Anywho, Garfunkel is a legend and I enjoy the work of Simon and Garfunkel, so I was glad to get to go. His voice is wearing from age and at first I was a little concerned that he would be struggling through the whole concert, but overall, I was actually impressed. The bit of airey-ness in his tone couldn’t mask the fact that he has an unnaturally smooth high range and an impeccable ability to tell stories through his songs. Plus, he had some great musicians with him including a fabulous guitar player, Larry Saltzman. It was worth the trip just to hear the acoustic and electric guitar treatments Saltzman was able to bring out.

On the negative side, the whole first half of the concert was the Philharmonic playing three lengthy arrangements of musical theatre tunes. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed that the selections were not any more varied. It was like listening to the same medley over and over. I have to disagree with the cheery review given by the Oklahoman about this concert. I was very glad when the first half was over.

So, I have always had a problem with restaurants that serve enormous portions. I have always believed it was simply a way to increase revenue by providing too much food to justify charging more for each meal. Since all of the other costs to the restaurant are consistent (personnel, facilities … etc.) adding a little extra food and jacking up the price can bring in more revenue per person.

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR while driving and caught the tail-end of an interview with some guy who is writing a book about obesity in America. I didn’t hear much, but I heard him talk about this restaurant problem, and he mentioned that Ruby Tuesdays had recently tried to reduce their portion sizes in response to the health concerns and obesity concerns in America. However, the backlash from their customers was so overwhelming that they had to return to the larger portions after just a short time.

This interested me, so I did a little search and found this article on Time Magazine from last year which talks about the issue as well. Interesting read.

Anyway, this just made me realize — the problem isn’t completely the fault of the restaurants. I mean, these chains are big businesses and they have to make money. They are just giving people what they want. So, the responsibility is on us. It’s not so bad bad to take advantage of big portions if we were all somehow disciplined enough to take half of it home for later or split with someone else at the table. Or, we can choose to frequent the local places, who generally serve more appropriate portion sizes. We just all have to get over our “price per pound” mentality and think about what is actually a reasonable amount of food to eat at one sitting.