4 - Sunday, July 3, 1994 Doug’s amazing mismanagement gt oug Collins ON THE OTHER HAND I S&E where Jean Chretien is blaming the separatists for the uncertain state of this country’s finances and the fact that there’s a fire burn- ing below deck. It’s not the separatists. It’s me. And it’s time to confess. Every financial move I make is a bust. If | go for something, it’s bound to jump off the Lions Gate Bridge. And the country jumps with it. Here 1] am, nearly 200 years old and stil] haven't found out how bonds work. Haven't found out how stocks work. Haven't found out how anything works. DOES anything work? Nothing works for me. Not stocks, not bonds, nor saying my prayers. I am a guarantor of grief. When interest rates were fetch- ing 8% a few years ago a Certain Person said I was silly to leave money in GICs. “Be like me,” she said. “Put the money into X fund.” I chewed my nails for a while, then acted. Right away, the market got the collywobbles. When it was all over Thad holes in my socks. But love will always find a way so we’re still married. Then there was Bill Bennett and his People’s Capitalism. “Just the thing for me,” I bur- bled. “I’m people and I need some capitalism. To hell with the six free shares. Let's go for a bundle.” You know the rest. Last time | looked, those BCRIC shares might have been worth all of 10 cents. Just before going for that tobog- gan ride, { had been preaching that anything government gets into frees to be bad. The prophet is without honor. And rightly so, the damned fool. There’s more. When a new BCRIC issue came on the market | bought some on the insane reason- ing that someone must have some- thing or they wouldn’t be doing it. They have something, all right. They have my dough. Plus big salaries. A peasant born and bred, | know perfectly well that the only safe place for money is in a plastic bag buried under the third cabbage from the right, second row, on - North Shore News Spud island. The next big laugh was mutuals. Ethical Funds. So it was over to the third cabbuge to doa lift, It's not that E want to be ethical. Damn that. | leave ethics to the holy, which is probably why there are so many crooks around. No, as far as Lam concerned a fund can be as unethical as it likes. I don't care if it gouges the work- ers, smokes all dey and drinks all night as long as it brings in the right percentage. So into the Ethical Funds marched old Doug, happy as the village idiot. But the dogs of advertising hadn't stopped barking before my Ethical Funds went for a slide. It's got so that 1] don’t dare look in the papers to see what’s up. I mean down. I think I must be the only guy in the country to whom the Revenuers have sent a note saying that | have unclaimed capital losses from 1987. They disappoint me. What about 1977, 1967, $957, and 1947? If you ask me, things were better in 1937. Those were happy days. The only thing people had to worry about was where their next meal was coming from. The mysteries of investment finance never bothered the lower classes. 66 Here I am, nearly 200 years old and still haven't found out how bonds work. Haven't found out how stocks work, Haven't found - _out hew anything works. DOES anything work? 99 If | had been around ia 1917, I'd have been buying Russian bonds just before the commies took over. It's the same with interest rates. They're being managed by the guys who invented the yo-yo. So they are more yo than yo, meaning that as soon as | lock in for a year, up they shoot. I reckon I’ve lost enough that way to keep me in booze for years. A fellow can’t win, although I do hear tell that writers like Gordon Pape and other financial advisers have become millionaires. How do they do it? Gordon ever even mentioned money when he and I were doing the CBC's Capital Report out of Ottawa. Do people like him and esteemed colleague Mike Grenby take their own advice or do they Give free estimates in your home for Drapery, Slip Covers and Uphoistery Needs. We will bring samples to your home and will pick up arid deliver your furniture. COOKS UPHOLSTERY LTD. On Oak Street between Dist and 22nd Avenue 3750 Oak St., Vancouver, V6H 2M3 733-3610 money ide have a secret formula for which their books act only as a blind while they scoop up the lolly? Dumuies like me are in pretty good company, of course. “Safe as houses” trust compi- nies have crashed, all managed by geniuses like the Belzbergs. And think of the banks that have poured bitlions into countries like Guatemala. if you ask me, they don't know any more than 1 do. Must go now, [hear that China’s offering some good bonds. And when Quebec hives off, there'll be some good opportunities there. 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