Icing on the cake Quote by Ray Dalio

““the markets was much more fun than having a real job. As long as my basic living expenses were covered, I knew I’d be happy. In 1977, Barbara and I decided to have a child, so we got married. We moved into a rented brownstone in Manhattan and I moved the company there too. The Russians were buying lots of grain at the time and wanted my advice, so I took Barbara on a combined honeymoon–business trip to the USSR. We arrived in Moscow on New Year’s Eve and rode by bus from the drab airport through a dusting of snow, past St. Basil’s Cathedral to a big party with a lot of incredibly friendly, fun-loving Russians. My business has always been a way to get me into exotic places and allow me to meet interesting people. If I make any money from those trips, that’s just icing on the cake. MODELING MARKETS AS MACHINES I was really getting my head into the livestock, meat, grain, and oilseed markets. I loved them because they were concrete and less subject than stocks to distorted perceptions of value. While stocks could stay too high or too low because “greater fools” kept buying or selling them, livestock ended up on the meat counter where it would be priced based on what consumers were willing to pay. I could visualize the processes that led to those sales and see the relationships underlying them. Since livestock eat grain (mostly corn) and soymeal, and since corn and soybeans compete for acreage, those markets””

— Ray Dalio