My Baby Takes the Morning Train

This Awesomeness On A Stick blog entry starts...well, it'll start in about fifty words or so.

So I'm sitting in my Options & Futures class the other night wanting to bludgeon my eyes out with the blunt end of my desk. For the seventh straight example, my droning professor is talking about which minimum risk hedge ratio should be used to hedge the Japanese yen with the Russell 2000, and I'm thinking: "Yipes, is this really the best thing people find to do with their lives?"

I mean, wouldn't it be a little more fascinating and thought provoking to ponder the course of American history without a President Lincoln, rather than whether we should over-hedge or under-hedge? How about debating the relative merits of rational-emotive therapy? Should we withdraw from the Beijing Olympics? Where do the Elgin Marbles really belong?

Hey, I'm not really that naive. I know I chose my major, yet I wonder how it would have turned out had I done it all over again. I mean I still would have majored in Accounting at the undergrad level. Those classes did not enrage me, and I saw the benefits that accountants provide society - particularly auditors, who, as I like to say: keep the thieves honest.

But now that I'm working on an M.B.A. in Finance, I cannot help but take a look around my classes and wonder what kind of people these are that just give of themselves towards a profession that inherently really doesn't mean anything. When one way of making money dries up, they invent a new, vastly more complex method to fool everyone and abscond with treasure.

But hey, to each his own. I still, of course, believe that capitalism is the most efficient way to run an economy. It's just that lately, whenever I get frustrated over a fifteen minute discussion of how to calculate beta, I am reminded of my favorite quote from one of my favorite movies - Wall Street. After the profit-at-any-cost driven Bud Fox is about to go to trial for insider trading, tail between his legs, his father Carl has advice for Bud's future after prison. Carl is the quintessential old-school blue-collar New Yorker, the kind of middle class guy I grew up idolizing for his work ethic. Old Carl tells his son, "Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others."

When I began my accelerated M.B.A. program in January, one which will be complete in August, many people asked me why I was starting so early. My simple answer was, "Well, I don't have anything better to do till I start working in September." This is essentially true, though it needs to be qualified. I am not discounting the whole business school experience, and I have enjoyed a few of my classes, and I will enjoy my summer courses even more. Yet people ask why I would so doggedly want to complete this process if I am not completely satisfied. Well, it opens a lot of doors and does help in your future. Much like no one ever enjoys a trip to the DMV, but do you wanna drive or not? Thought so, so take a deep breath and deal with the grey walls and the smelly man standing in front of you.

It will get better, so don't worry about me joining any communes in Seattle. I haven't been laid off yet.

The Office returns Thursday evening from its strike induced hiatus. I know you'll all be watching.

I promise a better entry next time. This didn't go in the direction which I wanted, but few things do. Mikey needs to vent every now and then. So hold tight baby 'cause don't you know Daddy's coming! (Sorry, that was the background Springsteen music talking).