IC -- A Personal Digression Upon Investment

[sythyry]

[I personally don't agree with Sythyry on this, and didn't much want zir to write it, but zie insisted. -bb]

I find I have no great desire to set my money whirling around the tree, even if it should, in time, come back doubled and redoubled. 

First of all, it seems to me that money should be a reward for honest effort.  I am properly paid -- and paid well! -- for enchantments, for healings, and (paid poorly! I am not that good!) for embroidery and smithwork.    More money, I suppose, is deserved for risky endeavours, such as adventuring: but the risk multiplies the reward due to the effort; it does not add it it.  Pure investments of money, such as giving a wine-trader ten thousand lozens for a long trading trip and hoping that my share after it is done is eleven thousand, are no significant effort on my part, and do not particularly fit my dignity as a noble of sorts. 

Second: Nor even my convenience.  I do not wish to be forever fussing to find good merchants to invest in, fretting about how their commerce is going, losing money when I guess wrongly, gleefully noting a few more lozens when I guess rightly.  Bankers do this sort of thing, which is why banks and bankers are wealthy.  It is not how I wish to spend my time... and, though time is plentiful, my special tricks with time will not help much for this.  

Third: La!  Which is to say, my primary concerns are, I think, the safety of prime civilization from Vae; my friends and companions; enchantment; the cause of transaffection.  Perhaps I am missing something, and probably I should count fine dining among them.  These are enough for a somewhat over-full life (and, with fine dining, an over-full belly as well).  Fussing about money and investments is none of these; money is a means to an end, and, as an enchanter, I generally can earn more, honestly, at need.

Besides, I dread to imagine what sorts of Doom I could get in, if I indulged in investing.

Comments

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Your ~Mother~'s distrust of banks is I can only assume well earned. There are several large dragony types I can think of, who, fully anticipating living many many centuries, don't place much trust in the financial institutions of short-lived species, as you may pop off for a nap and wake up several centuries later wondering where the Bank of So&So has gone, when they, and in fact their entire civilization was wiped out by a neighbor several decades ago, and their conquerors were not too particular about maintaining financial record.

I don't assume this sort of thing happens often on the Tree though, and I haven't seen Zi ri to be terribly deep sleepers.

To whit: it is difficult for a servant to embezzle your bed (provided your bed is a vast collection of coinage and gems), holdings, and large heavy treasures. Even more difficult if you conveniently fail to inform said servant of the location and composition of the vast majority of your hoard investments. It is a lesson well learned, I think, not to place more trust/responsibility in any one servant than you can write off without much anguish.