Bustin' Loose Financially With Freddy D (or, It's All Greed-Speak To Me)

One of my favorite stories from American history is the story of Fredrick Douglass and his journey from slave to statesman. Read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. It's a thrilling epic for many reasons and someday I'm going to write a nice big juicy essay about it. Right now I just want to reference one small aspect of his struggle: the fact that he realized that learning to read was a key to his freedom.

In a very small way, I can relate. For many years, I was mystified by the language of the rich and greedy. That is, the dialect of finance. A lot of the world (I might even say the whole thing if I'm feeling cynical) turns on money. The powerful speak their own lingo regarding money, economics, markets, loans, stocks, etc. Their knowledge of such things helps them stay rich and get richer.

If we proles want to become independent from the richer classes, or at least not live a life of complete servitude to them, we must understand their language. Then we'll learn their tricks. Then we'll cut their heads off!!!! Whoa! We won't do that, I just got swept up in the whole French Revolution vibe.

The point: decoding Greed-Speak was a goal I first thought of several years ago. Ever since I've been teaching myself about the manipulation of money. It paid off big-time a few years ago when I refinanced my house. The mortgage rates had dropped so much, I went from 30 years of debt to 15 years of debt in the space of a few hours, just for signing papers at a bank. The monthly payment stayed about the same. I still can't quite get my brain around it; it was such a windfall, it seemed illegal.

It's tricks like that the rich exploit daily. My goal in learning their secrets is to learn to survive in the world they control, anticipate their moves and possibly even bring some ethical investing to their money-over-all mentality.

All that background is just a long way of explaining the significance of my recent subscription to Money magazine. Actually, leaving aside my own personal class war, I also subscribed because the damn airlines won't leave you alone about dormant frequent flyer miles, so rather than let them expire or endure more bulk mailings, I used them for a free subscription.

The first issue to arrive was December 2007. I dove into it, eager to learn the secrets of the Illuminati. Instead I stumbled upon one of those forest-leveling sections (page 129 to 142) dedicated to crap you can buy. Of course this was wrapped in a Christmas theme, but that's no excuse. I see those sections all the time in every kind of magazine. They're so annoying, just advertisements masquerading as catalog inserts masquerading as articles.

Despite that disappointment, the magazine has already led to two interesting experiences.


Experience One: Avoiding the Oil, Slick

I noticed on page 146 (The Numbers: Mutual Funds) that the Fidelity Contrafund was given a high rating. My savings are with Fidelity, so I went to their website to transfer some cash over. (Side note: In case you're going to point it out, yes, I already notified Fidelity of my disappointment concerning their investments in Darfur.)

"Give me some of that action!" I'm supposed to say with a cigar sticking out of my mouth, right? However, there was a snag. Attempting to be a responsible consumer, I glanced at the prospectus (that's a Greed-Speak term for the booklet that explains what the fund invests in.) It was then I noticed that one of the top ten holdings of the Contrafund was ExxonMobil. I recoiled like a vampire before garlic.

Anything with a connection to oil industry makes me ill. They are the biggest scumbags on the planet. Assuming there is anyone alive in a few hundred years, if they have a shred of honesty in their souls, they will have to describe this era in world history as the era of the oil wars, when genocides were perpetrated, terrorists financed, dictatorships upheld, all because of the desire for oil.

ExxonMobil represents the leaders of this repulsive pack. I didn't really want to team up with those jerks! After an internal struggle that was more difficult than I had hoped, I cancelled the transaction. Fuck the Contrafund!


Experience Two: Harvesting Sorrow

Also in the Money magazine is huge article on current mortgage mess (page 110: Foreclosure Investing). People are losing their homes at an insane rate, so you can buy them up. There are even classes offered on how to purchase homes in danger of foreclosure.

So let's summarize: lenders convinced tons of people they were a safe bet to pay the mortgage, now they're losing their homes and I should view this as a good thing. Since they can't pay their debts, you can swoop in and buy it cheap. Later, if the home market rebounds, you can resell it at a profit.

I was especially offended by the premise in the article that this situation was an opportunity and not a tragedy. The fact that people's lives are being demolished is treated as just fantastic news. Why? Because it creates a lot of people desperate to sell, even for an unfair price. Page 118 even notes that "Trump University" is offering a one-day course in Mortgage Default Predation, I'm sorry, Harvesting Sorrow, I'm sorry, "Foreclosure Investing."

I was repulsed by the excitement and joy these people were exhibiting over all this suffering. Is it a reason to celebrate that a young family got in over their heads and what once was a source of pride is now a crushing defeat? Hell, no!


Money vs. Me

There's several points of discussion to take from here. Some might say "But that's the system we live in, you're only hurting yourself not taking advantage of those opportunities." Some might say, "You never know where your money goes. Your current investments could be as bad as ExxonMobil." Another parade drencher might offer, "Do you really think anyone notices you avoid their mutual fund?" Another view: "You should invest with ExxonMobil and use their money against them. As a stock holder you can vote for their board of directors."

All of those have their points. There's often multiple strategies to solving different problems. I chose a complete boycott because well, it's just what my conscience can deal with. I don't want to run to someone just because they're making bread. I want to run away because they repulse me for the cruelties they have unleashed on our world. When people fall into financial ruin, I don't want my first thought to be, "Excellent! More for me!"

I guess I just want to preserve my human side as much as possible. I'm not saying I made a massive dent in the market, and I may be naïve, but not so much that I'm certain every fund I'm invested in is a totally planet-saving one.

That's the point. We just don't know. We can't know even if we want to, even if we read the prospectus. On top of that, environmental, human-rights, labor and international laws as of now can't be counted on to protect people over profit. That's why I'm always in favor of strengthening those laws. Otherwise, we're just blindly investing. Giving our money to strangers and not asking questions when the check comes back, even if there's blood on the bills.

Won't you join me and Freddy D? Let's learn the language of Greed-Speak and build a vocabulary of people over profit.

===
Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.