Nothing says Christmas like a good investment book! So get the investment book lover on your list a copy of Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere today.

Investing

Tim Richards, “Investing inversion is a powerful tool, if used honestly…”  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

A touching profile of fund manager Don Yacktman.  (Fortune)

How value investors should structure their portfolios.  (FT Alphaville, Free exchange)

The best money manager you have never heard of.  (Bronte Capital)

Why most stock market forecasting models don’t work.  (Monevator)

Burton Malkiel on marrying an indexed strategy with modern technology.  (IndexUniverse)

Audio/video

Passive Investing: The Movie. (Sensible Investor via Monevator)

A wide-ranging interview with Jean-Marie Eveillard.  (ValueConferences)

Bill Ackman’s video on “Everything You Need to Know About Finance and Investing In Under an Hour.”  (Market Folly)

Economics

The key to think about growth is sectoral balances: an interview with Goldman Sach’s Jan Hatzius.  (Money Game)

Why the separation of economics from the real world has been a mistake.  (HBR)

The Great Migration of the 21st century.  (Rick Bookstaber)

How to win at forecasting: a discussion with Philip Tetlock.  (Edge)

Startups

A talk with Brad Feld, author of Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City on what it takes to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem.  (The Atlantic)

A discussion on with Bill Gurley on what it takes to be a good VC.  (GigaOM)

Why most venture capital companies fail.  (Fast Company)

What makes for a great entrepreneur.  (Pando Daily)

Companies

A rare interview with Larry Page CEO of Google ($GOOG).  (Fortune)

How Apple ($AAPL) lost its lead to PCs in the 1980s.  (SAI)

What Polaroid can teach Apple and Instagram.  (Quartz)

Books

Andrew Haldane’s four favorite books for the year including Tim Harford’s Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.  (Management Today)

An interview with Willy Shih co-author of Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance.  (Simoleon Sense)

A look at the unbelievable story of Olympus and its former CEO Michael Woodford in Exposure: Inside the Olumps Scandal.  (Cassandra Does Tokyo also Bloomberg)

Six books Jack Bogle recommends including The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein.  (Money Game)

An excerpt from Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.  (WSJ)

Higher education

Can you still afford to send your kid to a state school?  (WSJ)

Colleges are on a building (and borrowing) binge.  (NYTimes)

Society

A doctor questions the benefits of long-term opioid use for chronic pain.  (WSJ)

California pays its state workers really well.  (Bloomberg)

Why we Americans keep falling for the wrong guy.  (New York)

How driverless cars could change the transportation landscape.  (Freakonomics)

Everyday America life through the eyes of a Russian.  (NYTimes)

Sports

Rising liabilities and insurance rates are going to affect contact sports beyond the NFL.  (NYTimes)

How television has changed college football.  (WSJ, ibid)

Using network analysis to analyze basketball.  (Wired via @pkedrosky)

A profile of world chess champion Magnus Carlsen.  (FT)

Entertainment

Here is one “black list” Hollywood screenwriters want to get onto.  (WSJ)

The story behind the Elf on the Shelf phenomenon.  (Fortune)

Pop goes the art bubble.  (Newsweek)

Mixed media

How two Presidents help one reporter come to better understand his son with Asperger’s.  (National Journal)

When your heroes are bigger then you previously thought.  (The Reformed Broker)

The nautical roots of the modern tattoo.  (Collectors Weekly via The Browser)

Dairy

Despite the rise of the latte, milk consumption in the US in a tailspin.  (WSJ)

The secret sex of cheese.  (Molecular Love via The Browser)

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