Holidays bring out the insanity in everyone

Here’s a video that’s been circulating showing the mass hysteria that normally civilized people succumb to when there are deals to be had.  Black Friday is that symbolic day when holiday shopping season starts, and retailers hope that the sales fueled by all the insanity will bring them back in black (profitability) for the year.  What a great example of herd mentality and bandwagon effect.

For me, it’s also a day that symbolizes the never changing attitude of the American public in drowning themselves in insurmountable debt.  In a way, it really parallels the debt driven anomaly that caused the massive housing bubble and over-leveraging of America.  Countless people will buy gifts on credit and finance purchases that they can barely afford.  They’ll buy things they don’t really need, or don’t really want to buy because it’s in the holiday spirit to give and receive.  There was a quote in an article on CNN Money about a guy who went into debt last year from holiday purchases.  How do you let that happen to yourself?  My parents always taught me to never carry a balance on a card or finance purchases of luxury items like flat screen TVs.  People will always submit to irrational behavior when they see everyone else doing the same thing, so it must be ok.  The behavior of spending now and worrying later doesn’t seem to have disappeared.  Bubbles never really disappear, they inevitably come back in one form or another.  People don’t know what to do but repeat the insanity until the next one.  That’s a topic I’d like to expound on, but it’s beyond the scope of this post, so I’ll save it for another time.

I’m on the last leg of my studying for Level 1 of the CFA.  It is brutal.  At this point, it’s all about doing as many practice problems as you can in a day without going mad, which for me is about 500 questions in a few hours.  It was around this time last year that I was doing a similar amount of studying for the Series 7 and Series 63.  There were times when I wondered if life was really worth living if all there was to do was bury my head in books all day.  I have to say, I’m really no different than anyone else.  Although my insanity is relegated to relentless studying rather than mass market hysteria, it’s still insane to live this way.

Almost there, going nowhere

I want to apologize to readers and to myself for being a raging pussy.  I was running out of things to talk about since, well you know, being unemployed and all doesn’t really produce a lot of interesting stories.  Therefore, I had to share some mundane bullshit about my second bout of newfound freedom, my generic social life and how I love it so much.

This blog should only be about things related to Wall Street, the senseless spending of money, pleasures derived from money, and the borderline narcissistic behavior that I exhibit from time to time.

The CFA Level 1 is proving harder than I thought.  I have a tendency to have trouble concentrating on one thing for an extended period of time, as I do one thing and feel the urge to move on to another.  I don’t like getting “hung up” on things.  Some people call that ADD but that would be a wrong diagnosis because I’m still able to read books in one sitting.  I prefer calling it a tendency to ‘come, fuck shit up, and leave’.  Because of this and some other difficulties, I surfed Analyst Forum for suggestions on studying.  What did I end up doing?  I bought the Kaplan Schweser CFA PremiumPlus Package for roughly $1500 about 2 weeks ago.  On the website, the package is described for that “added confidence – when failure is not an option.”  Brilliant.

See, that’s one of the ways I solve my problems, by throwing MONEY at them and watching as these problems disappear like magic.  How long this kind of erratic behavior can sustain itself, I don’t know.  Gotta spend money to make money.

American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card. This shit is sexy.

I recently got approved to carry one of these around.  Yes, that’s right, what you are seeing is my American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card.  No idea how I managed to swing one considering I’m unemployed at the moment; well probably because I have impeccable credit history and I’m not viewed as a flight risk.

Of course, this card is nowhere near the level of prestige of an American Express Centurion Black Card.  You whip that out anywhere and females will IMMEDIATELY start swooning.  Not even a SHAMWOW can soak up their dripping wet pussies.

“If you have a dream, you have to protect it.  Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t do something.  People can’t do something themselves, so they tell you that you can’t do it.  If you want something, go get it.”

“It’s about finding out what you can be in this world.  Defining it.  Controlling it.  And saying I will take what is mine.”