The Immediacy Trap

When I was growing up my father told me more than once that "if you do that, son, you aren't going to like the consequences."   Generally, those words were spoken to me just before I wanted to do something to fill an immediate desire - such as spending all my yard mowing money to buy my first car.  It was cool, it looked fast and it was the first car I saw on the lot.  Nothing else mattered - that car was mine and I have to have it right then and there.  I was too young to know it then but I had fallen victim to the "immediacy trap."

What my father was trying to tell me, and of course I didn't listen, was what he already knew - the car was a total piece of crap.  I didn't like the consequences.  Had I been patient, done my research, and shopped around for the right opportunity - I would have been much better off.  Now, I will pass that experience down to my son - who, most likely, won't listen to me either.  That is the bond between father and son.

Experience has always been the best teacher if life, love and money.  Those that tend to disregard what experience has tried to teach them are often doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  Yet, when it comes to economists, analysts and investors, past experience is something that is readily set ...