The Price of your Future: $613

Once in a while you read something or see something or hear something...that changes your perspective. You may not become a new person or shun your old ways, but at least for a second...you stop and you think.

Today, I would like to tip my hat to WSO user Matt_SF for adding that something to my day.

Rarely does an article so beautifully sum up my own thoughts and feelings on a subject, that I don't feel the need to comment on it with a single word.

I do, however, have two quick topics to address. One you've heard me rant about on a near daily basis, the other is something that few of us ever think about or incorporate into our routines of thought and behavior.
Short Term Perspective and Fiscal Stupidity

I really really hate America's ruling classes. Between old money oligarchs and new money idiots who's dotcom timing brought them undeserved levels of opulence, we have a ton of people in America affecting political decisions who shouldn't be allowed near a pooper scooper for fear of starting a literal shit storm.

That having been said, when the public repeatedly asks to be whacked over the head with a shovel, what right do I have to rant against big government policy?

After all... all is well citizen Midas.
Changing Your Position Once Your Views Are Established

We grow...we age, our attitudes change. What do you do when you sympathize with a position you once spat upon?

Do you ignore it? Do you circle the wagons?

I'm currently feeling like I need to start rooting for The Reds and I am not talking a bunch of ballplayers from Cincinnati.

I once thought that the dollar was the magic pill...delivering the cure of capitalism around the globe, one ambition fueled gulp at a time.

The reality is steadfast becoming different to me . There is no system... economic, social or political which will cure man kind's ultimate trait.

Stupidity

Read it, eat it and weep about it later. $613. The price of your soul, prole.

 

Proles are weak because they think that the soul and the body are on in the same. You could probably find a few proles with 5 figure rebates as well, because they operate on prole motives (fear, greed, the love of pleasure) and not any higher form of good (reason).

"If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated." ~1984

The invisible hand only works when citizens act in their own rational self interest. This seldom is the case.

looking for that pick-me-up to power through an all-nighter?
 
Midas Mulligan Magoo:
The reality is steadfast becoming different to me . There is no system... economic, social or political which will cure man kind's ultimate trait.

Stupidity

Well said.

Here's a

(and I don't mean to be disingenuous to your thread by sharing stand up comedy) which I think relates well with your topic.

In 1976, James Hunt broke the sound barrier through Eau Rouge only to retire before the event finished... following the race he had sex with three Belgian nurses at the clubhouse near La Source.
 

Glad to have stimulated your neurons a bit there Midas.

While I was reading this, I couldn't help but think of how my mindset and decision making processes have changed before and after I got into finance.

Reminds me of the Shawshank Redeption quote:

"The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook."

__________________________ Attempting to be the chess player, not the chess piece @ Steadfast Finances
 
Matt_SF:
Glad to have stimulated your neurons a bit there Midas.

While I was reading this, I couldn't help but think of how my mindset and decision making processes have changed before and after I got into finance.

Reminds me of the Shawshank Redeption quote:

"The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook."

@ Matt

always liked "get busy living or get busy dying", though my crewd, lewd side shows every time I hear the exclamatory "Alexandre Dumb Ass?!" line.

@LIBOR

I think Bob Parsons is a great example of your definition of a prole.

 
meph:
Matt_SF:
While I was reading this, I couldn't help but think of how my mindset and decision making processes have changed before and after I got into finance.

Somewhat self explanatory, but would you mind elaborating a bit on this?

Sure. I meant that I went from a belief that free markets were actually free, that CNBC was (by in large) a trusted media outlet, that the game wasn't rigged, etc.

I think that after you spend some time in the trenches, you find that the view from the battlefield is much different than the scripts written from the Ivory Tower and broadcast to us from the teleprompter.

But I'd wager that any entry level foot soldier knows the surest way to wind up dead is to listen to the Ivory Tower Generals than his company Sergeant.

__________________________ Attempting to be the chess player, not the chess piece @ Steadfast Finances
 
jc100021:
They are being 'given' back money they earned.

It seems that the issue is less about who should be taxed and to what extent, and more how people can be happy for their "middle class tax cuts" that actually hurt them. The real people being hurt in this case are the people on WSO, who aren't getting much back now but will inherit the defecit when the big pay checks start coming in.

Deficit schmeficit. Do you know how big of a TV you can get at Walmart for $613 these days?

 

Im starting to regret studying finance. I knew Wall Street had stigma of being greedy and corrupt but I figured these stereotypes were often exaggerated and figured an honest person could do well from doing good research and making intelligent decisions like a Warren Buffet. I've never seen the inside of things so I very easily could be wrong, but the more I learn, the more dirty the business seems (sub prime mortgage crisis, goldman shorting BP days before the gulf incident, insider trading...). Everyone wants to make a lot of money, but Im not willing to sell my soul like it seems some of these bankers are doing. Feel free to tell me Ive mistaken because Im clearly not an expert, but legislation like this seems down right criminal.

"I want what all men want, I just want it more." -Achilles
 
Best Response
Chelseawon3nil:
Im starting to regret studying finance. I knew Wall Street had stigma of being greedy and corrupt but I figured these stereotypes were often exaggerated and figured an honest person could do well from doing good research and making intelligent decisions like a Warren Buffet. I've never seen the inside of things so I very easily could be wrong, but the more I learn, the more dirty the business seems (sub prime mortgage crisis, goldman shorting BP days before the gulf incident, insider trading...). Everyone wants to make a lot of money, but Im not willing to sell my soul like it seems some of these bankers are doing. Feel free to tell me Ive mistaken because Im clearly not an expert, but legislation like this seems down right criminal.

This cracks me up, because it was so me when I was still a babe in the woods. I thought when I passed my Series 7 the firm was going to set me up in a small but respectable private office, with a secretary I shared with two or three other guys, and they'd hand me a book with about $50 million to manage for starters.

Imagine my surprise my first day of work. After six months in the pit, I couldn't sell my soul fast enough.

 

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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!"

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