“What decides whether a sum of money is good? The money is not going to tell you; it must be the faculty that makes use of such impressions – reason.”
Cause and effect, crisis management, anti-fragility, investment strategy, interest rates, negotiation.
Did they teach finance in the Old World?
Did the teacher ever say “Look children, you can’t put all of your money in oil. The market is notorious for swings. Do you remember Exxon Valdez? Imagine if your family’s investment portfolio was completely made up of commodities. You need to diversify children. Buy stocks, invest in real estate, a little private equity and yes, if you must, some commodities. But the key is to have anti-fragility. When the world falls apart, you want investments in your portfolio that will benefit from the chaos.”?
The world fell apart.
Stars came out, hydrogen exploded in space, worlds imploded, gravity buckled, telecommunication business men were heralded as saints.
“Alice,” I said, as we cleared away the breakfast. “I want to make our investment portfolio more robust. It would be folly to continue investing in gold and oil. You were right when you said that mask startup was going places. We should have listened when you said there would be a sharp share price spike.”
Alice said, “And since you are pointing out the obvious?”
And I said investing in that Summer sporting events management company was naive.
“At least you didn’t put our last bit of cash into an airline.”
I looked away, to shield my shame.
“Erm, yes. Don’t tell Mommy, but…”
“You didn’t?”
“I did.”
Facepalm.
“What have I told you? Let’s play Monopoly, I can teach you about investment.”
Love in the time of Coronavirus.
What can you teach your children with Monopoly?
“Daddy,” Alice said. She had bought all the train stations, half of London, Amsterdam, Madrid and Paris and was working on a hotel chain empire. “What’s that up your sleeve?”
“Nothing.”
A wad of €500 notes fell on the table. Alice didn’t notice.
Bank error in your favour, collect €25,000.
Always be the banker.
A million skyscrapers. A billion glass panels. Grey buildings, grey desks. A splash of colour, Alpha waves, 8-12 HZ, motivational posters. Waterfalls, deer, hollow quotes and an open plan office.
Meeting room 104, now.
Is that spreadsheet worth your life investment?
“Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.”
Named after the hardest part of a technical climb, the crux is the hardest move, make it past that and you can walk to the top, fall off and you die.
Probably comes from the word crucifix.
After three hours of Monopoly, we were at the financial crux.
And I fell off.
I’d spent the twenty-thousand dollar bank error on a logo and three-hundred thousand on a two-year-gym membership, three days consultancy from a Facebook advertising agency and a yearly subscription to Forbes.
Did someone say cost cutting?
Alice was like a billionaire in a pandemic, hoovering up property like a fucking anteater. I landed on Mayfair. There was a hotel.
“Oh,” Alice said as she started reading from Anti-Fragile. “A blue one, you owe me twenty five thousand Euros. I’ll swap you the Water Works for Athens, Prague and Madrid.”
“Alice,” I said, giving the cards over. “When this is all over you’re going to have to work in finance. That’s all that will survive. That and ZOOM.”
“Dad,”
This wasn’t good. Alice only ever called me Dad when she had something important to say or, worse, wanted to gloat. She was sitting on a cool five million, a luxury chain of 5-star hotels and the world’s most valuable real estate.
I had a bedsit on Old Kent Road.
We’d long since run out of Cornettos.
She was going to gloat.
She wasn’t high enough in a chair to reach the table so had made a cushion out of 500€ notes. She towered over me like she had just sold PayPal.
“The largest generators of wealth in America historically, have been real estate (Alice) and second, technology. Further, businesses with negative optionality such as banking (Daddy) have had a horrible performance through history: banks lose periodically every penny made in their history thanks to blow ups.”
She was rubbing my corporate misdemeanours in my red face.
Being schooled on the intricacies of historical wealth distribution by a nearly-four year old was not what the Financial Times said should happen.
“Look,” I said, trying to distract her with a lie so I could commit grand larceny on her hotel chain, “I’m going to re-mortgage White Chapel and sell my bedsit on Old Kent Road.”
“Daddy, give up, it’s over.”
“Over?” I shouted like Jack Nicholson. “It’s never over. Will you buy the water works off me for fifty Euros?”
Desperation is not pretty.
“It’s not worth it,” she said. And started reading from Anti-Fragile again. “I don’t see any upsides coming out of any deal with you Daddy. You need to barbell yourself Daddy, remove the chances of ruin in any area. Instead you’ve invested everything you own on Old Kent Road, brick and mortar travel agents and VHS.”
“Wait, hear me out. I can collect two hundred when I pass Go, hit a Community Chest, dodge your hotels on Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Leicester Square, invest heavily in some infrastructure on Angel Islington, move some invisible assets around, re-mortgage the re-mortgage and take out an unsecured loan. I think I can still win.”
“Daddy,” Alice said getting up from the table to make herself an ice-cream sundae. “You’re just gambling. Can you read The Wind in The Willows, please? I need to relax.”