The weekend is a great time to catch up on some of the reading you skipped during the week.  We hope you enjoy this set of long-form links.

Investing

TR, “To invest on the basis that something is always about to go wrong is the sign of an intelligent investor.”  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

What do you really want to get out of the markets?  (Kirk Report)

James Montier’s suggested investment reading list.  (Big Picture)

A look at J. J. Butler’s Successful Stock Speculation.  (Finance Trends Matter)

Companies

Why McDonald’s ($MCD) wins in every economic environment.  (Fortune via The Browser)

A look at the “dollar store economy.”  (NYTimes)

Banks are still poised to wreck the global economy.  (Spiegel Online via naked capitalism)

The future of business is sharing, not selling.  (The Atlantic)

Economics

John Kay, “Economists – in government agencies as well as universities – were obsessively playing Grand Theft Auto while the world around them was falling apart.” (FT)

The Industrial Revolution was largely an energy revolution.  (voxEU)

What exactly are “Chinese banks“?  (naked capitalism)

What France needs to do to save itself.  (Business Insider)

Peter Thiel has his sights set higher than Silicon Valley.  (Details via @longreads)

Health

How increasing longevity is going to change everything in our society.  (WSJ)

On the benefits of stress management.  (Scientific American)

Education

Why our “primal brain” can struggle in the classroom.  (Scientific American)

Why are Finland’s schools successful?  (Smithsonian)

Sports

Why rich guys like own NBA teams.  (Grantland)

On the “fierce intimacy” of tennis rivalries.  (NYTimes)

Mixed media

On the coming “bifurcation in digital content.”  (TechCrunch)

How hard is it to get a cartoon into the New Yorker?  (Slate)

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