A short, limp end to the aughts

A short, limp end to the aughts

Posted on September 6th, 2009 by Alex Kudera

Always alert to cutting-edge financial news, I stumble upon this gem on the front page of cnn.com: President Obama wants you to save!

Since so far he has done well to emulate our aging decade’s other President—who had such a knack for creating employment with a certain non-paying quality—I know that soon many people will voluntarily find jobs and turn Obama’s words into action. Yes, under his leadership, our homes have been declared safe and good savers we will all become. With our future in place, I felt a need to chime in on the proper mix of mutual funds, the asset allocation so dear to the finance industry, particularly if the half of American workers who have any retirement plan at all choose to invest in stocks and bonds.

With homosexuals, soldiers, psychopaths, black Presidents, blacker athletes, and former pols named Dick and Bush dominating our thick news crawlers and lengthy AP wire—an inflammatory testosteronics of internet and TV info—I thought I’d offer a less potent portfolio for our silent majority. We good, overworked citizens are no doubt anxious about the economy and looking for safe harbor, a place to protect and underserve our cash. The chief characteristic of my mutual-fund selections would be a certain limp quality that we of the shriveled up and fearful classes could embrace. I give you then my flaccid portfolio:

20% Ultra Short Index (Resist “Napoleon Complex” short holdings for superior passive investing.)

20% Inflation-Protected Securities (Thank the government to manufacture a fake number so our safest pick offers sallow returns.)

20% Small Cap Index (Avoid an international flavor if said small-cap companies are overrepresented in any well-endowed region of the world.)

20% Short-term bond (This is not to imply we like being briefly bound and whipped by our financial advice or advisor.)

20% Puritan (Aye, the veritable Malvolio of mutual funds, the one brought to us by Boston behemoth Fidelity but that shouldn’t imply this straight-out-of-Southie stalwart is upwardly mobile in any way.)

Next week, I will offer a raging-bull allocation to more properly reflect the zeitgeist of the times, our turn-of-the-millenium reign of ’roids and blue pills. Until then, hang tough and humbly invest.

Disclaimer: The writer is not a financial advisor and has lost a lot of money on his own stock selections, including his mutual funds. (In fact, he often wonders why he watches hours of professional football, avoids gambling on sports, but then chooses to bet on companies he has never seen in his life.) Thus, he cannot afford to be held responsible for your investments or investment strategies, particularly the ones that fail. Although said writer would never speak aloud of money or send you any, he is willing to receive some or all of yours by check, cash, money order, visa, amex, mastercard, discover, debit card, paypal, inheritance, or U.S. postal service. Of course, if you decide to accept the rather limp olive branch extended by the flaccid portfolio your profits are your own, to keep, to cuddle with, or to spend as you please.

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Alex Kudera

Alex Kudera's Fight For Your Long Day (Atticus Books) was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea and consequently won the 2011 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It is an academic tragicomedy told from the perspective of an adjunct instructor, and reviews and interviews can be found online and in print in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Inside Higher Ed, Academe, and elsewhere. His second novel, Auggie's Revenge (Beating Windward Press), and a Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day (Hard Ball Press) were published in 2016. Kudera's other publications include the e-singles Frade Killed Ellen (Dutch Kills Press), The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity (Gone Dog Press), and Turquoise Truck (Mendicant Bookworks). When he's not reading or writing, he frets, fails, walks, works, and helps raise a child.