Totally unrelated to anything going on in my life right now, this is something that's been bugging me.
I'm not allowed to take a hundred bucks (of my own money) and bet on the outcome of the Super Bowl (not legally, I mean) but Wall Street financial gurus are allowed to take millions of dollars (OTHER people's money) and bet that 'this' particular chunk of people are going to pay their mortgages?
I'm not generally accused of being too logical, but I do TRY, and this just is beyond me. I don't hear this talked about a lot, either, which makes me wonder. People just seem stunned; they don't understand where all the money has gone. Well, a good chunk of the money was NEVER REALLY THERE to begin with - so much of economics is based on psychology - what somebody THINKS something is worth, makes it worth that much, you know? The other half - it was gambling. The banks were gambling with your retirement money, your investment money, etc. They gambled and they LOST.
Anyway, I've discovered a problem with working at home. Aside from the fact that I feel like shit, and the kids feel like shit off & on (and are 4 and 6, so are doing their normal 4 & 6 stuff aside from illness) - the problem with working at home that I've never heard anybody warn me about? The fact that my cat thinks I'm the most comfortable bed in the house. When I'm not available, he'll frequently find my open laptop to lie on. Right now he's trying to manage to lie with his head on my hands while I'm typing.
I'm a lot better than I was two or three days ago, but I'm really tired and nauseated right now. Having a very hard time concentrating on these columns of numbers. :( Hopefully I'll have more success tonight after the kids are in bed.
mostly pointless meanderings
Friday, January 30, 2009
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2 comments:
I love how they all talk about investing like it's some magical formula to make money, etc. But it really is at least 90% gambling, and 10% common sense.
The only way to profit from the market is to play the whole thing and stay in for the long haul. You buy low or no load index funds and hold on to them for the next 20 years. You can expect a rate of return around 10%, historically.
That's it. Anything else aside from actually investing an individual company that you actually know something about is gambling (and even doing the index fund thing is a little bit of a gamble). Personally that's why the amount of money these guys get paid pisses me off so much. They don't really know what the fuck they're doing either (well, the one's that still think that they're helping people invest their money don't. The ones that have figured out that their job is to churn your portfolio to generate commissions and fees know exactly what they are doing).
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