Investing with Dopes and Crooks

(News-Herald, January 22) The folks who manage my investment portfolio sent me a nice note at the beginning of the month.
Actually, when I say “investment portfolio” I mean the little wad of money that I’ve been squirreling away in the teacher equivalent of an IRA. I confess to not being a great money manager, a confession that does not come easily because, like many people, I have a vague sense of shame floating over the monetary portions of my life. It embarrasses me that I am not, somehow, in better financial shape.
I have never undertaken a large financial transaction in which I did not lose money. My personal financial planning and cash flow management skills are slightly more impressive than a magic eight ball. I don’t want to be rich; if I can just get one more kid through college, it won’t bother me to eat macaroni every day until I retire at age ninety. But I will be embarrassed.
I started the retirement account years ago, and figured I had at least done that part right. Turns out I would have been better off burying the money in the back yard, and somehow I feel ashamed of that as well.
My retirement fund is run by one of those companies that somehow makes money move in and out of thin air, represented locally by a nice man who gets ahold of me every few years or so to make sure that, I don’t know, I’m still alive or something. They periodically send me little letters to tell me about the thin air that my money moves in and out of.
Now, given the economic meltdown, I expected that this newsletter might contain a little something extra like “Ooops” or “Sorry” or “Really, don’t freak out.” Instead, this newsletter included puff pieces on the order of “How to make the most out of family time” or “Our friend, the amazing toaster oven.”
Maybe they just weren’t sure how to proceed in the midst of financial chaos. Maybe they didn’t want to disturb me. Maybe it’s hard to type up the newsletter with everyone crowded together on the window ledge. I don’t know. But I feel moved to write them a note to help them with this daunting task.
Dear Nameless Investment Firm:
Perhaps you’re unsure what to tell me at this point in your charming quarterly communications. Well, here’s what I need to know.
See, even out here in the cheap seats, we’ve been able to get a vague sense of the causes of all this mess, and they seem to boil down to two things—people in the financial industry who are crooks, and people in the financial industry who are dopes.
So what I really need to know is, which are you?
Did you figure to make money trading in things that were, at best, shady and, at worst, unethical?
Or did you get involved trading in “instruments” that were created by the crooks and traded by people too lazy, dumb or unimaginative to see the signs of impending disaster?
Please pick one. Please note that the “We just didn’t know this could happen” defense means you’re choosing “dope.” The “We knew there were potential issues but we figured we could skate past them” defense means you’re choosing “crook.”
I understand that it’s hard to spin either choice. There’s no easy way to say, “Yes, we’re run by a bunch of crooks and/or dopes, but you should still entrust us with your retirement fund.”
It could help to follow that up with something along the lines of “Lessons we have learned from this.” But maybe you haven’t learned any yet other than “Welfare is only for people who make a really REALLY big mess out of their business.”
Still, you’ll have to trust me when I say that I can be forgiving.
After all, I haven’t been doing any due diligence, either. I didn’t study up on you, follow up on your work, or insist that your local representative talk to me more than twice a decade. I have been a lazy dope, too, so I can relate. True, it’s not my chosen profession to pay attention to these things, but it is my money and my life, and I handed it over to you, grateful, frankly, not to have to think about it any more. I know that I have to do better. It would just be comforting to hear that you know that you do, too.