It's Impossible To Watch "The Big Short" And Not Start Driving Yourself Completely Insane
This happens to me every few months. I’ll have nothing much going on so I’ll watch The Big Short. And like clockwork, it drives me absolutely insane, and for a few reasons.
1) I blog about this here and there, but how in the blue fuck do they not teach you a gosh dang thing about basic economics in school? Do you remember Calc? And Algebra? That shit is the DUMBEST shit ever. Like, on what fucking planet do we need to know what any of this means, because it’s certainly not Earth
I get that math is important and you can’t do the Big Short stuff without it, but for the 99.9% of the rest of us that don’t need it, it would be nice to know how interest rates work. Or maybe how to buy a stock? Good ways to save for retirement? I don’t know, is that asking too much? Ok, nevermind, let’s do sohcahtoa, I’m sure that’ll help me literally ever. For sure not.
The economy is so, so, so, so fucking important to our every day lives, and the more I go through life, the more I find out unless you studied finance or econ in college, you don’t know DICK about it. So many people I know live basically paycheck to paycheck, but then will go buy a new car after getting a quarterly bonus. Meanwhile, they have $40,000 in student loans to pay off. Not smart!
2) So to that point, it drives me crazy how much smarter these guys are than everyone else. The Big Short does a good job explaining the really insane world of subprime mortgages and all that jazz,
but it’s still super confusing, even for a smart guy like me. I spend hours on Wikipedia after the movie is over, just reading all about this stuff, trying to make heads or tails of it. And if this is the stuff they explain in the movie and it’s still pretty confusing….
3) What the fuck else do these guys know that we don’t?? I just want to get into a room with the dude from the movie with one eye for 10 minutes and have him answer questions. I hate when people answer the question “if you could have dinner with one person dead or alive, who would it be?” with some shit like “Gandhi”. GANDHI??? Did motherfucking Gandhi return 489% on an investment? Fuck Gandhi, give me one eyed guy all day every day. I’m pretty sure I’d walk out of that dinner already a billionaire. I mean the movie literally ends talking about how he’s shorting water. So now I’m 50 articles deep reading about that and haven’t a clue how to get started. Not that I have enough money to do that anyway, it’s just the fact it exists is baffling.
If you haven’t watched The Big Short, I highly recommend it. It’s fascinating stuff, and it’ll give you a big anxiety attack, so that’s fun too.
PS: Over the last couple of years I’ve developed a growing interest in finance and the like. My old roommate back in DC before I moved here was a financial planner and he taught me the basics- stuff like how to invest in stocks (Shout out to Apple, I got in at 92, shout out to me) and about how dope Roth IRA’s are. I’m 28 and barely scratch the surface of investing and do more than 99% of people I know. This stuff is so interesting and there are a ton of ways to make more than the .01% interest rate you get for keeping your money in your Bank of America savings account, most people just have no idea what they are.