Hi Guys,
I just spent the better part of Sunday afternoon cleaning up my investment book library. In that process, I rediscovered Harry Browne’s book “Fail-Safe Investing”. It’s a small thing and had slipped behind the bookcase.
The book promises “lifelong financial security in 30 minutes”. That’s a tad presumptuous or just might be correct for a speed reader. The book extols the virtues of 17 simple rules. They are rather generic and commonsensical. That dovetails with Browne’s personality perfectly. In the text, Browne acknowledges that these rules reveal no secrets from the worlds most successful speculators, but nothing else would do that either. That too is classic Harry Browne.
He wrote numerous, very detailed investment books. I own several of them. Here is a Link to a nice short summary of his 17 rules that you likely can read in 30 minutes or less:
http://thetaoofwealth.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/harry-brownes-17-golden-rules-of-financial-safety/Enjoy. There are no shocking revelations here. Again, that was typical of Harry Brown.
Harry Browne was a humble and honest man. He passed away in 2006. He was a presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket in both 1996 and 2000. I always made a point to attend his Las Vegas MoneyShow lectures.
Elaborate viewgraph material is the order of the day for these selling presentations. It was not Harry’s standard, however. He made his remarks from a single densely annotated 3 X 5 note-card that was tattered from overuse. I fondly remember joking with him about it in a cordial way.
Good memories about a fine gentleman.
Best Regards.
Comments
Some comments on Harry Browne by William Bernstein:
http://www.efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/harry.htm
There's even a Permanent Portfolio Discussion Forum/Message Board:
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=2439d3662da02c1e36418ebb3d5460bd
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/InvestmentRules.htm
A variation, called The Juicy Permanent Portfolio
http://www.tightwadweb.com/customportfolio.html