The Illusion of Control Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

In my last post I pointed out that, contrary to the claims of Modern Portfolio Theory, families who own businesses aren’t at all uncomfortable with the “single stock risk” they are taking. (I’m not counting startup companies, which mostly fail.) I also pointed out that, once a family sells its company and invests the proceeds …

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Creative Capital

The Illusion of Control, Part II

by Greg Curtis

When I was writing my last book, Family Capital, my objective was to make it appealing—well, tolerable—for people who didn’t care much for investment issues but who knew they really should learn something about them. Adult children, for example. But also spouses, cousins, attorneys, accountants, bankers, trustees and others who needed a working knowledge of …

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Creative Capital

The Illusion of Control

by Greg Curtis

“Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee/Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? *** In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,/And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars.” —From Lady Percy’s soliloquy in Henry IV, Part I Toward the end of World War II, and afterward, psychologists tried to come …

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