(no subject)

A few months ago I was talking about something -- I believe about how I was pretty much over the cheap use of death in fiction as shorthand for meaningful prose -- when tealin recommended No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman to me. A few days before it arrived by order at the library, R randomly said to me, "I've been spending a lot of time in the school's library lately. Have you heard of this book, No More Dead Dogs? Best title ever, right?"

So I LOLed and told him I was about to read it. Later on I texted him: "No More Dead Dogs funny and charming, best book I've read in a while."

( No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman )

Final Verdict: A really enjoyable fast read -- one of the few books in a long time where I haven't wanted to stop reading when I got off the train and had to go to work. :D

(no subject)

I am apparently trying to give myself an MBA through osmosis.

IT STARTED SO INNOCENTLY, with the desire to take control of my retirement fund, because it did nothing but lose money for the first year or so that I had it. Granted, the first year I had it was 2008, but still. The government was taking a mandated amount of my paycheck and shoving it off on Vanguard, and if they were going to fucking blow it, at least they could fucking blow it on causes I wanted it spent on rather than like, I don't know, Halliburton or something (we'll get to them in a moment).

So I started a dictionary of financial terms, and I rearranged my investments so that my money is now blown pointlessly on small businesses and ethically conscious concerns. I started looking in on my retirement fund every few months. And then Mama Tickey left me a smallish annuity composed of...okay I'm not sure what they are, I think mostly hedge funds. And the annuity is fun because you can watch it change significantly from day to day.

For a very limited definition of "fun".

Also I got to pull all my money out of the fund that appeared to mostly be invested in "bastards" (Halliburton et al) and put it into "Hamburgers and the deaths of your dreams", aka McDonalds and Microsoft.

Anyway, I just got my "Semi-Annual Reports" for most of the funds I'm still invested in, and I am going to read these things and understand what they say if it kills me.

My favourite part so far is how they determine "fair market value" of my stuff. There are three ways they do this:

Level 1: "Quoted prices in active markets for identical investments". Like, if you buy an ounce of weed just like the ounce of weed you already have, this is what it is worth. Totally legit.
Level 2: "Observable inputs such as quoted prices for similar investments". The difference between a hamburger at Burger King and at Wendy's is pretty negligible. Still fairly legit.
Level 3: "Significant unobservable inputs supported by limited or no market activity".

I'm pretty sure Level 3 means guessing.

Level 3 is some guy somewhere with an actual MBA, eating a sandwich, picking a number between one and ten. And I mean, I'm glad Level 3 is the level with the least impact on how they decide what my stuff is worth, but the fact remains that my annuity is basically valued on "stuff that's like your stuff", "stuff that's sort of like your stuff", and "guessing".

The more I study investment banking, the more I am convinced that we are fucking crazy to allow our economy to rise and fall based on a financial system driven primarily by guessing and the emotional stability of people who live in Manhattan.