Skrentablog

In 2000 before the dot-com meltdown I bought a few cases of french bordeaux. Even though I like bordeaux, it half-seemed like a silly purchase at the time, but when the wine arrived I was happy because the bordeaux had risen in value since I purchased it, but due to the stock market death-spiral my accounts had gone down in the meantime. win, sorta.

Unfortunately there was also a bmw 540 that I decided was too indulgent to buy and passed on. Afterward I kicked myself -- it would have been free. I would have exercised some netscape options I had to buy it. I held onto them, eventually they declined in value until they were worthless. I should have bought the car!

I saw a joke circulating at the time that beer would have yielded a better return than some stocks. The beer bottles could be returned for the 5 cent deposit, but stocks became worthless. Plus you would get to drink the beer.

Now we're going through it again, but even worse. The banker line now is that it's not the return on your capital that you should be worried about, it's the return of your capital.

I just got a state of California tax refund check. Normally it's ineffecient to pay too much withholding, essentially lending the government your money interest-free until tax time. In this case though it turned out to be a decent investment. :-|