Tanja Berg's Reviews > Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

When I finished the book, my immediate thought was, “I want to read it again”. And take notes. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I loved “the psychology of money”. This book is more “the psychology of people” - that is what never changes. We will still be driven by envy and greed in 50 or 100 or 500 years. How the world will change in 50, 10 or even 5 years we can’t really know. We cannot foresee the next pandemic, war or black swan even that will turn the world topsy-turvy. Even in the late 1990’s after I had bought my first Nokia I didn’t expect to be surfing on a phone 10 years later. I didn’t really think I would even as late as 2006.

Also, chance plays a much larger role trying anyone would like to admit. Where would we be now if Al Gore had won the election in 2000? What would the world be like if we didn’t all have to suffer the scars of 9/11 (just think airport security), an attack that could have failed or turned out differently.

The author says that the best strategy is to be both a pessimist and an optimist. Don’t fall down one way or the other. Save like a pessimist, invest like an optimist and keep the horizon long. After “the psychology of money”, I jacked up my savings. I did it again now. It’s a combination of both high interest bank account savings and stock funds. The latter is long term - I save more every month and I don’t touch it. Every decade there will be a disaster that badly affects the stock market. I’ve had two hits and watched my stock funds dip and then recover and continue to increase after a few weeks or months. Making money fast is much more difficult. Don’t take up as much debt as you think you can handle either. (I have none for now, but this is not a given.)

The world will change in unexpected ways. Human nature stays the same. Read the book, I promise you will learn something good.