[lbo-talk] choices schmoices

[andie nachgeborenen]

It's a total joke to tell people who have no knowledge
of markets, no information about companies, no way to
evaluate whether to invest in funds or individual or
securities or determine the worth of either, that they
have "choices." And by people thus ignorant, I mean
people like you with postgraduate educations and
professional, even technical, jobs. Or like me, with a
PhD and a law degree, numerate and an interest in
economics. I won't tell you how much I lost in the
2000 bubble, trusting a broker who I choose to believe
was an idiot rather than a crook -- even with the
mid-decade boom and a painful and protracted education
in investment, and having lucked on a really good
broker/financial adviser, I haven't make all of it
back seven years later. Telling working class people
without college degrees that they have "choices" in
those circumstances is just a cruel joke and an open
invitation to individual and collective disaster or
highway robbery. Even the better funds charge a hefty
management fee for their, er, services. (It's probably
a good idea to check out what annual percentage the
fund you picked charges by way of a management fee,
but that is by the way.) If I knew more about benefits
law I'd write a paper on this. Doug, you should do
something on this topic in LBO, I mean an extended
treatment. Or have one of your contributing economists
do it.

--- bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:


> 
> 
> fer.christ.sake.already.
> 
> carl, gimme your weapon cause i'd like to put a hole
> in the heads of every 
> mother lovin' freak who couldn't stand it and wanted
> to see to it that we 
> had "choices" as to how we invested our retirement
> funds. i was handed a 
> 1/8 in ch thick full brochure today, from which I
> should decided how to 
> invest my 401k. What a bewildering array of
> bedazzling bullshit as to 
> different investments.
> 
> christ.
> 
> who thought up this shit? i used to think Dave
> Hawkes' was a whack job, 
> ranting on about how we were all capitalists these
> days because of our 
> 401ks. But damned if it does not seem to me that
> it's yet another way to 
> wrap us around the stock market as some kind of
> savior or, at least, 
> guarantor of our good fortune.
> 
> what a load of malarkey.
> 
> choice. feh.
> 
> 26 year old I work with said, "Oh, I just took that
> little quiz Investment 
> Firm has on their web site. It said that, since I
> was young, I should be a 
> risk taker. So, I chose that plan!
> 
> Some fuckin' choice man. Some fuckin' choice. I took
> a quiz. I chose. 
> christ.a'mighty. 
> 
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. 
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/