Money money money

I just finished reading Michael Lewis' The Big Short about the build-up to and burst of the housing bubble in 2008. I wasn't at all interested in economics to be very honest, and if it wasn't for book club, I would have never picked up this book; but I have to admit I am so glad I did. Even after spending a lot of time googling things I did not understand while reading - for example, the most basic terms such as "shorting", which I had no idea was a verb before I started reading this book - plenty of things remained that I still don't understand about this crazy financial world. I guess the whole point is that Wall Street was somewhat intentionally made so complicated that nobody would be able to understand its intricacies; thus, making it easier to hide or move money around in somewhat sketchy or even illegal ways.

To me, what is most astonishing are the greed and the amounts of money that was being "played with" (after all, it's not so different from gambling in a casino), and really, it was all other people's money, ordinary people's money who were a little too gullible and all too eager to own their own houses - after all, that's the American dream, isn't it? The amounts of money described that was invested/used in shady shorting deals, etc. are in the billions if not more. There was only one transaction described in the whole book that I could even grasp in terms of how much money it was. There were a couple of young guys in NY who put up all their savings of $100,000 to bet against companies that were in some sort of turmoil and they made hundreds of millions in the end too. But $100,000 is an amount I can at least grasp. I can imagine that one day I might even have that much money. Granted, that would be in two decades or so, after paying off all the loans I will be taking out, finishing medical training and maybe saving a bit of money. Until then, I am pretty sure I will be living pretty similarly to how I live now, which I am not saying to complain at all, just a statement.

One of the reasons I have a hard time grasping what it means to have millions of billions of dollars is that I am pretty comfortable having much much less, and there are people who have even much much less than me, and they are ok too. I have been thinking a lot about money matters because I am quitting my job soon and will be going back to school, a very expensive school, and so I am applying for all kinds of financial aid, scholarships and such, but in the end, I will have to take out some if not a lot of loans, which is very very scary! If it wasn't for people taking out huge loans, and so many of them, we would probably not be in the mess we are right now. I want to be the last person who contributes to this mess, but I am really hoping that this investment in my future will pay off - not like a mortgage loan on a house I can't afford.

I've never been overly conscious about financial matters, never tried to save money, but I don't really care about expensive things. My most valuable asset is this nearly 4 year old MacBook I am writing this entry on and who knows how much that is worth now. I don't buy expensive clothes... well, I do have to admit that once (or twice) at the encouragement of a friend who does have expensive taste, I did buy unreasonably (to me) expensive jeans and guess what? Both (!!) pairs of $200 jeans ripped on my butt within a few months. Now, of course my first thought was "damn, I must be getting fat" but I really don't think that was the reason as my $40 and $30 jeans are still in perfect condition after years. This reminds me, the second pair of those expensive jeans ripped as I was taking some stairs at a beautiful beach in Porto and had no choice but to buy a pair of harem pants for I think 10 Euros, and I just loved those pants! But I digress...



So the other day, when I finished the book, I started thinking of all the great things I have done this past year, despite the fact that I am no millionaire. I have visited Hungary twice, gone to a wedding in California, visited friends in Minneapolis and Kansas City, applied to a lot of expensive medical schools and went on a few interviews here and there. I can think of only one time in the past year when I was thinking "if only I had an extra $1000!!" and let's be honest, it would have probably been a horrible idea to take an overnight bus to Toronto and a flight the next morning to Havana for the weekend.

Yesterday we had a post-doc candidate interview in the lab and afterwords, a few of us took her out to lunch. She's coming from the University of Connecticut, lives in a smallish town, owns a car. She was asking us about NYC, what it's like to love here, how expensive it is. We told her to definitely expect something very different from UConn. It is expensive, sometimes unreasonably so. But with some effort, it's completely possible to find a way to reasonably live even in this city. I am comfortable right now, although I am also alone and it's much easier when you don't have to worry about anybody else eating a good meal or going to school. One day, hopefully, I will have those $100,000 (at least) but who needs millions and billions?