Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist - The F.S.A.

Sometimes I forget that not everyone is an atheist (it's hard, I know) and have found myself in some potentially awkward situations around the office where I was trying to be funny but on second thought, theists probably would not have found it funny. Two examples:

1. Co-worker is having difficulty doing something and goes: "Oh God". I replied: "Yes, how may I help you." Insert awkward laughter here.

2. Several people are leaving for business school soon and an older co-worker mentions how all the old fogeys are going to be left behind. I reply: "As long as it's not like those badly written Christian fiction Left Behind books. [high pitched voice] Oh no, I've been left behind, ohhh, it's so scary." Other co-worker smiles and says: "Haha, Christian fiction...". Can we say, awkward.

Note to self, tone down blasphemy at work.

Ok, maybe not completey senile but his latest Investment Outlook might portend as much for the future. In it he's railing against CDOs and subprime mortgages utilizing such colorful phrases as "You were wooed Mr. Moody’s and Mr. Poor’s [bond rating agencies Moody's and S&P] by the makeup, those six-inch hooker heels, and a 'tramp stamp'". If that's not a sign of dementia then I don't know what is.

He does have some salient points, but the ironic part is that I'm sure PIMCO manages their own CDO(s). They're such a huge bond powerhouse that I'd be surprised if they don't have one. Plus, I bet they have a fair amount of subprime exposure both in and out of their CDO(s). Maybe he just wants to spread some weakness in the market so he can pick off some cheap bonds? People have criticized him for as much before. Still, I recommend reading the outlook, it's entertaining at the very least.

Of all the things to remember when writing SQL queries, these diagrams are the most representative of the most important thing to remember. In fact, remembering these will save you considerable time, frustration and generally make you a happier individual...as I've recently found out. It's practically life changing.

So remember:

Inner Join

Left Join

Right Join

Outer Join

Got those? Good, because I could have saved myself so much time today if I had only remembered. Yaaaarrrggg. Learn from others mistakes and all that :P.

I've opinied before on volatility in the markets. It was a bit of a missive post and the main point was to stick to your asset allocation and your dollar cost averaging. Volatility is to be expected in the financial markets and while it sucks to lose money in the short-term, it's nice to have the backing of reams of financial data for the ol' buy-and-hold adage.

I then found myself in an unexpected situation. I could have imposed some volatility on my own personal/family life. I had an offer from not one, but two hedge funds. They pay was potentially triple my current salary (or at least double) and if things went my way, my compensation's path after that would have followed an exponential function with one firm tantalizing me with talks of seven-figure incomes. But I resisted. I prized the stability of our current family life and I was unwilling to purposely undo much of that. Moreover, my wife had been accepted to Harvard and that gave us another reason to stay put. Things stabilized after that and I felt that life had essentially returned to it's normal, non-volatile state.

If only it could have lasted a bit longer.

Recently, a rift has appeared between my wife and I. In all truth, it's been there for some time and I just haven't seen it. The fact that I can see it now just means that the rift is that much larger than before. These past few weeks have been especially trying as a result. We been arguing on and off and all aspect of our lives have suffered. I'm not functioning optimally at work, we're both emotional eaters and have been eating out much more often, my blog posts have died down (no duh), and to top it all off, I resent going home. I know that all that awaits me is more arguing, more bickering, more fighting and I spend as much time as I can at work instead. Hardly an ideal situation and remnant of my own childhood when I would do the same thing in high school, but that is a post for another day. Suffice it to say that my coping mechanism for these types of personal issues is avoidance.

While the root cause of this rift is complex and stems from several overlapping issues, the catalyst for this widening was our eldest son. For some time now, my wife has been worried about his social development. "Shy" no longer seemed an appropriate word for his behavior. We did some reasearch online and we think he has selective mutism. To put it succintly: he talks, functions, and behaves normally at home with us and our au pair, but in public if he is approached by strangers he freezes, avoids eye-contact, and does not say a word. He's selectively mute.

He's always been like this. But I chalked it up to shyness whereas my wife (the more perceptive of the two of us) has been worried about this for about a year now and wanted to get help. Because of my stubborness/laziness/inability to see the issue (take your pick), we didn't bring him to a therapist until a few weeks ago. She told us that her diagnoses, while including selective mutism, is more serious than that and she mentioned Asperger's Syndrome a milder form of autism or some other Pervasive developmental disorder. The effect has been profound. Because I waited my wife feels I am to blame for the seriousness of his condition. We read and research and see constantly that it's best to start treatment for these diseases as early as possible. She feels my inaction has doomed our son to a less than fulfilling life or at the very least has needlessly increased his suffering and our difficuly in helping him.

We don't believe he has Asperger's. He doesn't exhibit all the symptoms and his behavior is normal at home. The therapist said that one symptom is that he wouldn't reciprocate others emotional behavior...not sure if I'm saying it the way she does. The gist of that symtom would be an inability to act appropriately in a "sad" situation for example. But he does reciprocate emotionally and does understand how to act at home. When his little sister is crying he'll try to shush her and tell her, "It's ok cutie" and give her a toy. That seems like emotional reciprocity to me.

As a result, things have been much more volatile at home. It's ironic to think that I was in a situation where I avoided volatility and lo and behold here it is again, equally unwelcome but this time unwittingly into our home.

At this point I'm trying to take care of everything without making too many more mistakes. My wife and I have been reading some more about selective mutism and the more we read, the more it seems like he has it. We're trying to help him with his social skills by playing games at home where we pretend to look at someone in the eye by looking at their forehead. We're going to be video taping him to be able to show another therapist that he does talk, interact, and behave appropriately at home.
These have been trying times for us. Things have been said by both my wife and myself that we've regretted. Underlying all the words though, is the pain. Even after we work through our son's issue there will still be the pain for us to work through together as a couple. I know we can work through it, I'm just worried what the price we be in the meanwhile.

Damn, that volatility can be a bitch sometimes.

This is just a note to anyone looking for a job out there. I've been interviewing some people that want to work at our company and here is a list of snafus to avoid:
1. Don't use the words "left-wing" or "right-wing" in an interview. You risk alienating the "left-wing" atheist interviewing you.
2. If you put down you have programming experience, make sure it's more than just one class in college. It's painfully weak when you don't know the difference between object oriented C++ and procedural C++.
3. One page for your freaking resumé! Two full pages is way too much. I don't care if you are Albert Einstein, keep it to one page and expound on it while I'm talking to you.
4. Speaking of two page resumés, make sure the information on the two page resumé is more than fluff. When I ask you about this and that experience and it becomes very obvious that you are overstating (also known as 'BS-ing'), it doesn't look good.
5. If you're doing single-variable regressions all day, know what R^2 means, what it does, and why it's important. Don't just take whatever line excel spits out at you. For crying out load here.
6. Check your resumé for [fixed my typos] grammar and punctuation. Have someone else read it, especially for your two-page monstrosity. I could hardly read the thing.
7. Don't BS too much. A little is OK, but when it becomes apparent that you are BSing a lot (like, with a 2 page resumé) then I don't like it and you're not getting the job.

Hope that helps!

I received ten total responses so far for my hypothetical situation involving the eccentric billionaire. To recap, a billionaire walks up to you and offers you a billion dollars to complete one task. The catch, you have a 90% chance of living and a 10% chance of dying. Do you accept? I said that I had two answers for this and I'm going to detail my answers before getting to everyone else's.

Answer 1.
Assuming that I was single. I would take it. I figure that I have a very good chance of accumulating millions of dollars in my lifetime, but this is a shot for the elusive one billion dollar mark. I would do it (assuming it wasn't anything illegal or unethical).

Answer 2.
Assuming I'm married (which I still am :P). No way. I want to see my kids grow up.

What have we learned? Marriage was good for me. No, seriously. I've seen other bloggers talk about this as well (Lamoneyguy). You find that special someone and it makes you more grounded. In my case, having a wife and kids have made me more grounded, responsible, and mature.

Now let's look at what others have to say about this:

Anon: "It would depend on my age or personal circumstances"

Jim: "I'm reminded of something Warren Buffett said: Why would you risk something that you have and need to get something you don't have and don't need?"

Moom: "I don't need a billion dollars. I don't think it is a good risk aversion question BTW because it's not comparing like with like and the outcomes are so extreme." [Freaking economists, always pointing those things out :P]

Hans: "Apart from your age and risk-aversion, it depends on your financial situation"

jj: "these are precisely the odds on climbing mount Everest...10% of those who try die" [There is your task from the billionaire, climb Mt. Everest]

LAMoneyGuy: "Wouldn't take it. The amount is really kind of arbitrary, as it will never suffice to account for the magnitude of risk. The risk in this case is simple, it's infinity. It's not 10% of death or any other such craziness. It's infinity."

Mike: "I'd take the task, provided that it didn't involve hurting or killing any member of my family or my friends"

her every cents counts: "Maybe it if was a 1 percent chance, but I'd likely still avoid taking the risk"

FrugalBabe: "I'm an athiest too, so I have no delusions of an afterlife. So that 10% chance of dying would just be too much of a risk for me" [Greetings fellow atheist]

Living Almost Large: "Depends is it fun? If it's fun and a once in a lifetime opportunity? Then heck ya! If it's something illegal and stupid then no"

Here's a real quick update on our net worth:
- Assets were up 122 bps aided by a strong market plus contributions to our 401(k). My mother paid back her loan with interest. I'm glad that I was able to help her out. Some more contributions for the kids 529 plan trickled in and the strong market helped that balance grow. In addition we received $300 worth of rebates from doing Credit Protector again on all of our citi cards. Moreover, I had my first payout from google adsense, it only took me under 2 years.
- On the liabilities side, total liabilities were down only 15 bps as credit card balances were higher than usually due to some unusual circumstances that I will detail later.

On an aggregate basis our net worth stands at ($4,323). Still negative, but getting back up there.

Next month will most likely see that number dip down due to some large bills coming due. On the plus side, we've bumped up our 401(k) contributions as my company has decided to increase the percentage that they match. I'll also be getting a raise which will be effective in July. This will be very important because this will give me a sense of my long term career plans. If things work out well, we'll make plans to stay long-term. If things do not work out, then we'll make plans to move after my wife finishes grad school. Maybe I'll check out some more hedge funds. We'll have to wait and see.