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Abishek, this may be cheating on all the other men here I love dearly, but you have the cutest profile picture. You may become known for that.I gave this question thirty seconds of thought before I decided I’m just one of thousands of users, and not particularly known for anything. Then I thought some more. Then I took an aspirin.“What ho!” I thought insultingly to myself. (It was an insult in modern parlance. I can’t fool me.) “We do have things we’re known for in some circles on here, Gigi J Wolf. Let’s have a rundown. And quit addressing us in the third person, shall we?”Firstly, I’m known for being a Proud Co-founder of the Bottom Writers™.My ceaseless fundraising efforts on the BW’s behalf have allowed me to build a small village in the Himalayas where I train ninjas to make and stuff teddy bears for the poor children of Chicago. Ninjas don’t get a lot of work lately, so this is good for the ninja economy and keeps them in turtlenecks.Those fundraising efforts have also allowed me and my family to go on an extended cruise around the world. That’s all I can tell you at this time without getting the IRS involved.(Something about non-profits, nepotism, and ninjas without Social Security numbers.)Secondly, I’m a card carrying, certifiable Little Old Lady, and I’m conscience-less in using it.The acronym for this is LOL, which I have never used to denote amusement, but which will come in handy when my Himalayan ninjas revolt against the low pay and gruel I give them out of the goodness of my little old lady heart, and should I need to melt into the woodwork and snow to hide from them.Despicable ninja ingrates. You may call them DNIs.Thirdly, I’m known for my tendency to stick to the strict truth when writing my answers.I search tirelessly for sources and experts, such as myself, and then I quote them.Pay no attention to the newsletter coming out of the Himalayas from a group signing itself The DNIs for Justice, ranting about my pecuniary parsimony, and delivered by a postal worker dressed in black. It’s hot here. They should wear black shorts, already.(There’s a snowball hidden inside the newsletter and it’s thrown with unerring accuracy. Please stay inside until after the mail is delivered.)It will tell you all kinds of lies about my facts.Have no fears for my safety. I’m a highly trained little old lady with awesome guns of the bicep type. I graduated with an elite group of LOLs from a secret LOL school cleverly disguised as a girdle and Mah Jong shop in a block of similar nondescript businesses in New York City. Which is further disguised as a small town in Idaho.What number are we up to now? Ah, yes. Fourthly.I’m a freaking human dictionary.I have invented the Quords benburr, Qualien, and Quadar.Fifthly, I have a MOTH.He is the man of the house, and thanks to Irvin L. Ortega, he has his own night sky signal. Don’t bother using it though; if the city is overrun by teddy bear toting DNIs, he will be snoozing on the sofa.Sixthly, I have a dog, Sugar.The less said about her, the better. She’s joined the ranks of the DNIs out of a sense of entitlement and youthful rebellion against being fed gruel, and is no longer a member of this family. Despicable ingrate dogs. You may call her a DID.DIDs do things to undermine their former LOLs. Like poop in the backyard. Terrible.Seventhly, I keep people in my basement.This is a lesser known fact for obvious reasons, not the least of which is that I have no basement, so it gets crowded right away down there. The Basement People, the BPs for the acronym addicts, are also fomenting revolt and no doubt plan to join the DNIs and DIDs.Their leader is a Swamp Ranger. You will recognize him immediately because swamps and Himalayan mountains don’t mix.Eighthly, which may not even be a word, I’m a former flight attendant for Pan Am.I have a Boeing 747 parked nearby for quickie flights to the Himalayas.Cargo: Unknown. Pilot: Someone dressed all in black. Crew: Also little men dressed in black. Dinner Service: Gruel.Ninethly, I plan to become rich and famous writing kids books.This isn’t something I’m known for because it hasn’t happened yet, but what the heck, I gotta start somewhere.Tenthly, I live in Las Vegas.Whether I’m known for this on Quora, I have no clue, but it’s a good place to hide legions of DNIs, DIDs, LOLs, MOTHs, BPs, Benburrs, Qualiens, and other BEs. (Bizarre entities.)They will all be cleverly disguised as sweaty ninja tourists playing the slots and carrying teddy bears.

Every book is worth reading, provided you believe it will take you on the right journey. This is an individual measure, governed by a number of factors: many of which a reader must establish for herself. For me, the most important factor is the author’s life. With few exceptions, I personally avoid books by authors whose lives seem to reflect values I disdain or abhor. Ayn Rand is one of those authors.In my opinion (and this is just my opinion, though it resonates with most literary critics) Atlas Shrugged stood for nothing useful, constructive or interesting. The book seemed (in the 80s and now) to capture a popular tide of hatred and discontent among a group of people angry at the audacity and the irony of their powerlessness. Yet, it offers no complex answer to this question, aside from hatred—which, of course, isn’t complex.The novel’s tacit message is: America, and the West in general, is fine, as long as the “right people” are on top and things go the right way for such people, even when they are unremarkable. But when the haves and have nots are not easily identified by a preferred race, religion or irreligion, something’s wrong or out of balance (sound reminiscent of Nazism? Fascism? It should, despite Shrugged’s pretense of having the opposite agenda.)Moreover, because the novel is not written for highly educated people (I read it when I was 14), it captures the minds of simpletons, and lets such readers believe it’s saying something important, prophetic and, worst of all, true. (It aims to be a 1984 without the intellect, meaning of depth of Orwell.)Not surprisingly, Ayn Rand’s life seems to reflect these same themes. She was an anarchist from a peasant family (with no hope of moving upwards), that discovered she could polish up the anarchist message with the badge of a “revolutionary” because that sells books. She supported the Russian Revolution, but when the tides of Bolshevism turned against her family’s fortunes (under that same Revolution they once supported), she became alienated, disenfranchised and angry. That led her to preach a philosophy of discontent in which she ultimately disguised anarchy for libertarianism. What’s then revealed in her writings is simply a hatred of other people. And that’s the journey Atlas Shrugged will take you on.It’s no surprise that the book has picked up in sales since the Financial Crisis. There’s nuance to struggle, upset, capitalism and overbearing government, of course, but since Rand was seemingly ignorant of nuance, her novel targets the gut reactions of people, also ignorant of nuance. Sometimes those are racists, sometimes those are militant atheists, but most-times those are just stupid people.But again, I admit my bias—I abhor Ayn Rand’s life and what she stood for. I don’t like the lives of people that tear things down owing to their own discontent. At the same time, I don’t need to “love” the lives of authors I enjoy (George Orwell being a prime example.) Moreover, I’m actually glad that Atlas Shrugged and her other work was so poorly written, for if it was well-written, like Orwell’s, it might have swayed or misled people with greater capacity, societal and political influence. Enough though, about Rand.There are exceptions to my rule about not reading authors I abhor. Sometimes, nice prose is nice prose, even if the author resembles a smelly body part. Hemingway was one of those such authors. He’s just enjoyable to read, even though I believe one cannot learn much useful from someone clearly insecure about his manhood and that commits suicide. But Hemingway does have interesting bits and his writing is great craft! I rationalize my affinity for him by saying to myself, “Maybe his suicidal tendencies were genetic.” (Since his daughter, father and grand-daughter all committed suicide.)Vladimir Nabokov is another, though partial, exception to my rule. He was a paedophile, and I abhor that (good to know?) In fact, I wish someone had arrested him on behalf of the perhaps legions of unknown men that read Lolita and took action based upon it! But, nonetheless, the man could write. Thus, his short essays and the beginnings of his books, have some beautiful prose, even though he was the lowest of creeps (and a close friend of Ayn Rand’s, by the way:) I can find no justification for his values, but sometimes talent knows no owner.Who would I admire or suggest you read, assuming you like these Russian writers (Rand and Nabokov were Russian) and thus thirst for authors who write with meaning? Read Dostoevsky. Read, particularly Brothers Karamazov or The Idiot (ONLY the Pevear/Volokhonsky translations, NOT Nabokov’s!). Dostoevsky was not only incredibly insightful, he was prophetic. You will learn, not just about politics, but about yourself when you read him.American? Mark Twain is a good start—seriously. British? Orwell, as mentioned, but also, believe it or not, Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish). People think the man was just children’s stories, but his writing was fantastic and filled with symbolism! Also, one of the best writers of all time was Isak Dineson (Out of Africa). She was so brilliant people thought it was a crime she did not get the Nobel Prize—more than once!Once again though, this is all highly subjective.Have fun!Follow my newsletter here!

It’s been two weeks since British people who feel they’ve been left out and left behind voted to leave the European Union. And the ground is fertile for the same feelings to impact U.S. economic and trade policies.That’s terrible news for Asia… even if Asia’s markets didn’t crash as hard as those in Europe (except for Japan) immediately after the vote. Brexit and its American cousin are a slow and very bad burn for Asia.(But it’s been great news for gold prices. I’ll show you why gold is terrific insurance against the effects of Brexit in a free report you can download here.)Brexit won because of money and opportunity – or rather, because of the perceived lack of both.The Financial Times wrote, “According to all the pollsters, the lower down the social and educational ladder you descend the greater likelihood that someone will have voted Leave, while the best markers for Remainers is having a degree and being aged 18 to 29.”“… They are not, in the main, angry in a brick-throwing sort of way, but feel slighted by the declining status of so much non-graduate employment and rapid demographic change that no one consulted them about.”Also, the 17.4 million votes cast to leave the EU “amount to a collective howl of discontent… fueled by a festering sense of betrayal among legions of working class voters in places that have long felt overlooked by what they perceive as a political and media elite in cosmopolitan London.”This is happening in the U.S. as well. One graph summarizes how what’s been happening in America for the past few decades has created fertile ground for the kind of revolt that brought about Brexit.The figure below shows average household income in the United States since 1967, adjusted for inflation. It shows complete income stagnation for the average family.The wealthiest households – the 95th percentile (those which earn more than 95 percent of all households) have seen incomes rise by 75 percent since 1967, to just under US$207,000 per year in 2014 (which is the latest data available). That’s equivalent to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.2 percent since 1967.The story is very different for the average American household (the 50th percentile). Average household income has grown just 21 percent, to US$53,657. It’s grown just 0.4 percent per year since 1967. And for the poorest 10 percent, income has risen 22 percent over the same period – to US$12,276.Most notable here is the weak growth of household income over time. For the past two generations in the United States, household income for all but the wealthiest 5 percent has barely moved. That’s enough to generate enormous pent-up anger and frustration in many levels of society.The Financial Times wrote that Brexit shows “a stark divide running through a nation – between two tribes of old and young, rural and urban, traditional and metropolitan, and above all those fearful of globalisation, and its beneficiaries.” A similar case could be made for Americans, based in part on the graph above.Brexit represents a slowdown – and maybe the first steps of a reversal – of the globalization that’s defined markets in recent decades. When one of the biggest economies in the world steps back from the world’s largest trading block, it’s a powerful statement. And the U.S. doing something similar would be an even bigger blow for Asia and the rest of the world.One of the best ways to insure yourself against the Brexit fallout is to buy some gold. I show you three good ways to do that in a free report you can download here.For more insight and education about a ​range of finance and investment ​issues, you can also receive my free daily investment newsletter by clicking here.