Schadenfreude is the the german word that roughly describes taking guilty pleasure in the misfortunes of others.
This of us who work in and around the Australian stockmarket – but aren’t wealthy enough to be heavily invested have been enjoying this particular sensation for a while as the market has been “correcting”
And then it got even better.
A small stockbroking company Opes Prime, collapsed, and, as it did it was revealed that, thanks to some interesting lending practices people, who thought they had regular margin loan facilities have now discovered they don’t actually own *any* of the things they thought they owned. A number of quite high profile people have been caught up in the situation – including former Sydney criminal lawyer Chris Murphy. (Full coverage and analysis can be found on the Business Spectator site).
So what has happened is that a bunch of people who thought they were smarter than average, who thought that the regular way of making a buck was beneath them, and that only saps wouldn’t leverage themselves(1) to the hilt to make more money, have just discovered what my Gran always used to tell me.
“If you can’t afford to buy something – you probably shouldn’t buy it.”
And the rest of us are enjoying their painful learning process.
(1) Leverage themselves = borrow money and hope no-one asks for it back.
2 responses so far ↓
Daniel // April 10, 2008 at 4:30 |
I have as little respect for self-righteous mum-and-dad investors as the next person (words cannot describe the humiliation I felt when I found out that in Europe and a few other parts of the world, Australia used to be called ‘the shareholder democracy’), but it seems equally silly that ANZ and other big debtors are loudly proclaiming theur rightful ownership of the stock. They can do without it, and they too bloody well should have known what they were getting into.
beatonl // April 11, 2008 at 1:12 |
The big debtors *did* know what they were getting into – that’s why *they’ve* got the stock, and everyone else has a painful lesson…
You can’t trust capitalists when it comes to money.