Book Summaries

Lawyer run state of the US The top decision makers in China have an engineering background. The US, on the other hand, is run by lawyers. Policy issues that are decided by voters in other countries are debated in the courts in the US and decided by lawyers. The US has 3 times lawyers per capita compared to the European countries. The lawyers are the real aristocracy of the US. It is hardest to build in the most Democrat-led parts of the US. On a per-km basis, Subway costs 5 times to lay in New York than in Paris. DOGE in Trump’s second term would have done better by targeting processes as opposed to personnel. Countries with more engineering majors (“builders”) grow faster than the countries with more law majors (“rent seekers”). Engineering run China Engineers like to build. And that’s why China builds huge cities with great infrastructure. The Chinese are used to a physically dynamic and changing landscape as a symbol of progress. The current generation of Americans is not. China consumes half of the coal it produces. China has about 100 million workers in manufacturing. The perception of Japan shifted from shoddy goods to high-quality goods in the 1970s. The same might happen with Chinese goods now. China is estimated to be 45% of the manufacturing capacity of the world by 2030. All high-income countries, including the US, combined, will be 38%. Despite four decades of liberalization, China has made a very limited contribution to the global culture. Sanctions by Trump(2016-20) and porous implementation by Biden (2020-24) have riled Chinese companies. They used to buy the best quality chips in the world (American). Now, they are diversifying their supply chain by building a homegrown one. China and socialism China is governed by conservatives who masquerade as communists. No other socialist country has as light of a tax burden as China. China spends 10% of GDP on social programs. The US is about 20%. And Western Europe about 30%. Deng Xiaoping supported industrialization of Shenzhen to eliminate socialism. The Chinese state focuses on monumentalism. Amazing hospitals that might not have sufficient doctors. Amazing bathrooms, but toilet paper will be missing. Nowhere in China should one drink tap water. China and the one-child policy till 2015 Mao believed that a huge population was a source of strength for the country. He said, “The more people, the more power”. Deng Xiaoping, on the other hand, believed that a huge population would be a burden on the country. Over 300 million children were aborted during the one-child policy of Deng Xiaoping. There were several cases of induced early childbirth against a mother’s wish in December because the government officials want to use the leftover quota of the year! For 100 days in 1991, not a single child was allowed to be born in Shandong province. Everyone was killed via abortion or forced sterilization. The one-child policy lasted longer than expected, as a million-strong bureaucracy was working on it. Killing the policy would mean killing that bureaucracy as well. Authoritarian systems are not good at spreading bad news. China and pro-natalism since 2015 During his third term, Xi Jinping dropped the only woman in 25 member top-committee as an indication of his emphasis that Women should focus on keeping the husband happy. As China shifted to pro-natal policies in 2015, the Chinese state media showed in a more docile position and wrote articles saying that don’t care about your husband’s affairs. The divorce grant rate has dropped from 70% to 40% as well. China and Wuhan Flu/COVID-19 China followed extremely rigid COVID-19 isolation policies, which ultimately failed. There was even a case where a pregnant woman, bleeding and sitting outside the hospital, waited till her PCR test results came in before she was allowed to enter the hospital. Even infants who tested positive along with their parents were separated from their parents by China during the COVID-19 pandemic. China and Internet Till 2018, the chief regulator of the Internet, Lu Wei, was taking equity in companies and then changing the regulations to benefit those companies. This all ended in 2018, the government became strict, cutting down unicorns in China. Xi Jinping hates the virtual economy, including blockchain and metaverse. He thinks it is not good for the real economy in the long run. Now, there is 400K USD. salary cap to dissuade Physics and Math majors from joining finance firms. Social media brings little economic gain but risks bringing political upheaval. After the COVID-19 pandemic response and the killing of the unicorns, many young Chinese are disillusioned and are leaving China.

The book presents interesting ideas around early-age reading developments for babies. Physical activity Crawling (with tummy on floor) and creeping (on just four limbs) are both important for the brain development of the baby. A playpen restricts a child’s ability to learn about the world. If small, it restricts crawling and creeping, which further restricts brain development, vision, and hand-eye coordination. The child appears hyperactive. In reality, he is using his five senses to learn about the world. Learning Toddlers have a natural desire to learn. They can learn repeated messages in commercials much more easily than Mickey Mouse cartoons, though. Between 9 months and 4 years, a baby has an unparalleled ability to absorb new information. Kids 12 months or younger are the best to start reading. Years one to five are best for learning as many languages as possible. Any misinformation that enters a child’s mind in the first six years is very difficult to remove later. Children as young as 2-3 years old are always reading and learning. You can only control what they read. And not whether they read. Reading vs spelling His vocabulary limits a man’s thinking sophistication. To form a more complicated thought, he has to develop the corresponding vocabulary. Reading like hearing is not a school subject. It is a brain function. Spelling, on the other hand, is a set of rules that is meant to be taught as a school subject. You can read but might not be able to spell a word. The reverse never happens. How to teach reading Only teach a child when both you and the child are in a good mood. A sleepy, hungry, or crying child will not learn. Better to go fast and risk boring the child. Do not start teaching the alphabet; it is too abstract for a child to learn. Start with words directly. Teach 5 sets of 5 words three times a day. Thus, each word is shown thrice for one second each time. Retire one word per set per day. So, 5 new words are added every day. Use large (5" tall, 3/4" thick to begin with) lowercase letters written in red color for teaching words. The immature visual pathway cannot focus on small letters. Slowly reduce the size as the visual pathways improve. The first set of words is a reference to the family and body parts. Once the child has learnt basic words, go to couplets, e.g., “red truck”, “orange juice”, and then to more concepts like “full cup”, “little chair”, etc. After couplets, go to three-word sentences, e.g., “daddy is sleeping”, “mommy is eating”, etc. Next step is the books. Good books to start after that (from the same publisher) are Enough, Inigo, enough and Nose is not toes. Reading aloud is a bad idea for children. It slows down reading, which slows down comprehension. The schools do it to test a child’s ability to read. Never test your child’s reading ability. Children hate testing.

The book talks about various issues that make babies unhappy. It is a nice (though not great) read for first-time parents. A baby can naturally fall asleep. Hunger for food (milk) and hunger for sensations prevent that. Massages are good, but even carrying a baby in a body-hugging baby carrier is a form of massage. Steady walking with a baby in your arms is one of the best ways to calm down a distressed baby. Sleeping on the back has increased the incidence of head flattening. Due to sleeping on the back, the tummy time is even more important. Carrying a baby over your arm provides both tummy time and an amazing sensory experience for the baby. Beyond 10 hours a day, any more time spent with the baby has diminishing returns. Using a baby carrier while doing chores also exposes babies to the sensory experience of the house. White noise machines are not a good idea for babies during sleep. The best place for babies to fall asleep is near their parents. During the daytime as well as at night. Induced burping is a bad idea. It has little upside, and it interferes with sleep. If the baby fails to breastfeed properly in the first few days, it can create negative associations that are much harder to fix later on. A baby might cry a lot due to a lack of good gut bacteria. One can fix it by adding Lactobacillus reuteri to the baby’s diet. Overprescription of anti-acid medications leads to suppressed acid production, leading to allergies in the long-run. Infacol is no better than a placebo in treating colic. In the initial days, the baby must gain ~200 grams per week (even 500 grams per week has been seen). Cue-based care creates a language of cues between the baby and the parents. For the first 16 weeks, babies make inconsolable cries as the amygdala (emotion center of the brain) is not fully developed. As the circuitry matures, the cries go down. Boys are usually less developmentally mature at birth than girls.

The natural baby sleep solution is an interesting book on the baby’s sleep patterns. BRAC, Basic Rest and Activity cycle of 90-120 minutes decides the sleep and wake times for everyone. This is especially useful for babies, who would be active for about 90 minutes and then need to sleep or slow down. Too much stimulation near sleep time can delay sleep and have adverse effects on cognitive development of the baby. Unlike adults, babies cannot easily fall asleep on their own till the age of 6 months. 6 to 8 months is the best time to sleep train a baby with either Feber method or cry-it-out method, which involves letting the baby cry for a certain amount of time before comforting them. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) regulates all body clocks, including the sleep-wake cycle and even hormonal cycles in women. NAPS plan - Note the time baby wakes up. Add 90 minutes to it. Play/feed with the baby. Soothe the baby at 90 minutes to make him fall asleep. Use red bulbs in the baby’s room to avoid stimulating them with blue light. If you feed the baby whenever he wakes up at night. Then the baby would get conditioned to food at that time. And then it would be impossible for the baby to sleep without food at that time. A 6+ month-old baby should be able to sleep through the night without food. They should get the calories they need during the day. A baby who is being put to sleep in the middle of the alertness cycle will not sleep regardless of how sleepy he might be. Some babies are early morning larks. Some are night owls. Usually, babies are larks till their teenage years. An 8-9-month-old baby might stand up in the crib. The novelty of standing would die down in a few weeks, though. The most important lesson is that the baby always functions according to 90-minutes cycle when awake. For the first 3-6 months, the baby needs a nap every 90 minutes. For the next 6-12 months, the baby needs a nap every 180 or 270 minutes. How long they sleep will vary from child to child, though.

One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch is an impressive book about fundamental analysis for stock picking. Following is my terse summary of the same. Emphasis on Fundamental Analysis Look around for companies that are performing well and invest in them before Wall Street institutional investors pick them In the long run, common stocks give the best rate of returns Only basic math is needed to analyze and pick stocks “Don’t gamble, invest your savings to buy good stocks and hold them till they go up and then sell them. If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it” Investing directly in common stocks is a seven-card stud-poker hand Rules of investing in the market Buy a home (≠ house) before stocks Only invest what you can afford to lose (without impacting your daily life) Patience, Common sense, and willingness to do independent research Ignore short-term fluctuations There is nothing called a good or bad market Predictions are futile ...

This book seems to address the myth that primitive societies are more harmonious than our present societies.

Principles Investing is a sequential process The only goal is to maximize wealth over time. Do not “narrow frame” it to focus only on annual returns. A risk mitigation strategy must lower risk and hence increase CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate)

Some notable quotes from " How to Live" by Derek Sivers. It consists of 27 stories independent of each other. Some contradict ideas from others. And that’s what makes this short read even more provocative.

“What I learned losing a million dollars” covers the iconic rise and fall of Jim Paul in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a trader.

Thinking In Bets is a book by professional poker player Annie Duke. Its a book about better decision making under uncertainty.