Forbes: Forget Full-time Work, Gigs Can Be Safer

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Hardly a week goes by without someone lamenting the rise of the so-called "gig economy" where freelancers cobble together income from multiple sources. The common complaints are that there's no security in freelance work and that such workers are exploited.  The frequent call to action is that companies should create more permanent jobs because that would give workers more security.

Such claims and calls to action defy logic.

Consider the following here.

Forbes: Napoleon Hill's Lessons On Creativity

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A lot of business people confuse what it means to be creative. They frequently talk about creativity as if artists and filmmakers are the only ones endowed with such ability in significant quantity and quality.

While this view is commonplace, it doesn't make the observation accurate.

Step forward iconic self-help author Napoleon Hill with a previously obscure book How to Own Your Own Mind. It is scheduled for republication September 19. It was "first compiled in 1941," and then forgotten, according to the publisher. Whatever happened it's back and worth a read. More here.

John Batchelor Show: Remembering 9/11. Bull on Turkey and gold. Bear on Bitcoin.

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Photo by LunarHunter,

CC BY-SA 4.0, 

via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. News: When Should I Sell Stocks?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

When is it a good time to sell stocks? There is certainly a case to do so now.

The major indexes have surged these past two years. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 25.3 percent in the 24 months, while the Dow Jones industrial average grew 33.3 percent. That equates to annualized returns of approximately 12 and 15 percent, respectively. None of the figures include dividends. Read more here.

Middle East Eye: Investor love affair with Turkey may end in tears

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The recent war of words between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shows there’s no love lost between the two leaders. 

But the same cannot be said about investors who have become increasingly captivated by Turkish stocks over the past year. The vast sums of money flowing into the market are a sign of a solid economy, but there are growing concerns that things are becoming unbalanced, analysts say. Read more here.

U.S. News: Bonds Are Ideal For Balancing a Portfolio

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Even people who understand the stock market sometimes slip when it comes to bonds.

It makes sense because to most people fixed-income investing equates to math, which can be scary. Still, it doesn't have to be hard, and such securities are usually a vital part of a portfolio. Read more here.

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Forbes: Why Do We Worship Nasty Bosses?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Mean Men: The Perversions of America's Self-made Man by Mark Lipton, published Tuesday, is a long overdue book. How long overdue? I'd say at least a quarter century.

As the title suggests, the topic is the character of the entrepreneur and how unpleasant such individuals can be in the work place. Perhaps more than that, its topic is the dichotomy between the hero status given to the most successful entrepreneurs and the diabolical behavior that some such individuals exhibit. Read more here.