Financial Advice

Had lunch with our friend and financial advisor today. The lessons to remember when speaking with financial people are these:

1) Don't think about the short term. Only the long term matters. In the short term, shit happens. In the long term, everything rises gently.

  1a) This is in contrast to your personal long term prospects. In the short term, you might be having fun, but your long term trend is a diminishing return followed by illness, anguish and death.

  1b) Pay no attention to graphs with arrows that point down.


2)  If you feel stupid because you don't have enough money, you are stupid.

  2a) If you feel stupid because you're stupid, you probably don't have enough money.


3) Bad people in general, 100% of lawyers and 95% of financial people treat everything they do as a competition.  Did Zimmerman kill that kid? Yes. Did I get him off? Yes! I WIN!

  3a) The financial equivalent is: "Does this transaction I am recommending prove I am the smartest person in the room? Am I so smart that I see something the rest of the world is missing? I WIN!"

  3b) (sometimes followed by: "Ooopsy.")


4) Run from anything that has any of these words in it: 'Derivatives,' 'exchanges,' 'swaps,'  'Ianni,' 'demographic', 'youth,' 'My Fellow Americans,' 'The American people,' 'Republican,' 'McConnell,' ''Tea,' 'Party' or 'Your Call Is Important to Us.'


5) Do NOT spend any time in your life with people you don't like. Spend as much time as possible with people you love.

  5a) Find someone you trust to do this stuff for you. Ask them to explain. If they keep explaining until you get it, you've found a jewel.