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In the Money
Sep. 1st, 2011 02:27 amWith this paycheck, have finally paid off the film and dental work. I can now go back to my usual building up of a moderate short-term liquid savings buffer and paying down student loans ahead of schedule so as to minimize interest payments. I will coincidentally probably get another credit card this week, not because I need more credit, but because I would like for some of it to run through the Visa network, and anyway it will help me with certain Bank of America shenanigans.
I would honestly like to talk more about this, because I never get tired of talking about money and how I'm allocating my money. But this bores everyone who is not me. Professional accountants indulge me sometimes, briefly, or at least understand my enthusiasm even though they are worried I'm trying to ask for advice, which I'm not. I also lose them when I start applying macroeconomic principles to some of my microeconomic behaviors. Anyway, god bless accountants for letting me talk about this sometimes. Everybody else either thinks it's tedious or that I'm trying to communicate to them that I need money, or that I want to demonstrate that I have a lot of money.
As you might imagine, I get very excited about announcements by the Fed, not because I look to them for guidance or have any skin in the game*, but because I like seeing Bernanke do things with his money. It is like being a hobbyist and getting to see the grand master at work. I did not feel this way about Greenspan, who was kind of crap and a bit of a confidence man. In contrast, this current Fed thing, the liquidity swap, Operation Twist, is surpassingly clever and it makes me smile just to think about it. I assume it doesn't get reported on because a journalistic background doesn't give you the tools to understand it, or to evaluate which criticisms make sense and which are hot air. Plus it doesn't seem to have a human interest angle; as I know from my own life, people are not excited about conversations like "I moved 10% of my money from this account to this account, which has slightly but not substantially different properties!" I accept this. It's astounding to me, but I accept it.
I tried to come up with an example of something I won't get excited about, and I couldn't come up with anything. I like when people geek out, even about sports I don't follow. The best I could come up with was astrology, but that's fake. Similarly, unsubstantiated beliefs about nutrition, medicine, pop psych, incorrect history - stuff that is not fact based. Fake science. Things which are not real but you want me to treat as real. (I'm fine with geeking out about fake stuff we both agree is fake. I like fiction.) So that doesn't line up. I'm willing to get excited about the difference between brands of sandpaper, or composting techniques, or variations in compressed air. (Ciro and I recently got big excited about the presence or absence of certain stabilizing gums in different brands of ricotta, and talked about it for days.) Dog breeding? I guess I'm not interested in purebred dog breeding. Now, if we were talking adaptive genetic modifications. . .
* In fact, I have significant ethical problems with how capital gains tax is structured, to the extent that I refuse to buy stocks until it's fixed, independent of my general feelings about the moral hazards created by a lot of corporate law. I follow the stock market; I find it interesting. I read prospectuses for the same reason. But I don't have even a 401K, and never have. I know that seems crazy. I don't advise other people to behave this way. I certainly don't endorse other people behaving this way for reasons other than my reasons, which are linked with my feelings about money as multidimensional conceptualizations that are to most people's relationship with money what theoretical math's relationship is to algebra. (It's hard to explain. It's almost synaesthetic, but it isn't. It's not mystical and it's not crossed wires.) For me, it would make me uncomfortable. Especially if I'm not going to be taxed properly, I'd rather invest in things where I create something tangible or pay somebody a salary.
I would honestly like to talk more about this, because I never get tired of talking about money and how I'm allocating my money. But this bores everyone who is not me. Professional accountants indulge me sometimes, briefly, or at least understand my enthusiasm even though they are worried I'm trying to ask for advice, which I'm not. I also lose them when I start applying macroeconomic principles to some of my microeconomic behaviors. Anyway, god bless accountants for letting me talk about this sometimes. Everybody else either thinks it's tedious or that I'm trying to communicate to them that I need money, or that I want to demonstrate that I have a lot of money.
As you might imagine, I get very excited about announcements by the Fed, not because I look to them for guidance or have any skin in the game*, but because I like seeing Bernanke do things with his money. It is like being a hobbyist and getting to see the grand master at work. I did not feel this way about Greenspan, who was kind of crap and a bit of a confidence man. In contrast, this current Fed thing, the liquidity swap, Operation Twist, is surpassingly clever and it makes me smile just to think about it. I assume it doesn't get reported on because a journalistic background doesn't give you the tools to understand it, or to evaluate which criticisms make sense and which are hot air. Plus it doesn't seem to have a human interest angle; as I know from my own life, people are not excited about conversations like "I moved 10% of my money from this account to this account, which has slightly but not substantially different properties!" I accept this. It's astounding to me, but I accept it.
I tried to come up with an example of something I won't get excited about, and I couldn't come up with anything. I like when people geek out, even about sports I don't follow. The best I could come up with was astrology, but that's fake. Similarly, unsubstantiated beliefs about nutrition, medicine, pop psych, incorrect history - stuff that is not fact based. Fake science. Things which are not real but you want me to treat as real. (I'm fine with geeking out about fake stuff we both agree is fake. I like fiction.) So that doesn't line up. I'm willing to get excited about the difference between brands of sandpaper, or composting techniques, or variations in compressed air. (Ciro and I recently got big excited about the presence or absence of certain stabilizing gums in different brands of ricotta, and talked about it for days.) Dog breeding? I guess I'm not interested in purebred dog breeding. Now, if we were talking adaptive genetic modifications. . .
* In fact, I have significant ethical problems with how capital gains tax is structured, to the extent that I refuse to buy stocks until it's fixed, independent of my general feelings about the moral hazards created by a lot of corporate law. I follow the stock market; I find it interesting. I read prospectuses for the same reason. But I don't have even a 401K, and never have. I know that seems crazy. I don't advise other people to behave this way. I certainly don't endorse other people behaving this way for reasons other than my reasons, which are linked with my feelings about money as multidimensional conceptualizations that are to most people's relationship with money what theoretical math's relationship is to algebra. (It's hard to explain. It's almost synaesthetic, but it isn't. It's not mystical and it's not crossed wires.) For me, it would make me uncomfortable. Especially if I'm not going to be taxed properly, I'd rather invest in things where I create something tangible or pay somebody a salary.
