Bad Investment

Wahbert recently learnt that blue chips are for chipmunks.

It happened like this:

Times have not been good and the market shaky, but every so often people become restless with the same balance in their bank accounts. Wahbert is no different and a particular counter caught her eye. The company is well-established, loaded and very much sought after. Something like investing in national oil and gas companies. In short, Wahbert was impatient to invest and the counter looked pretty damn good.

Like most blue chip stocks, the cost of investment was high. But Wahbert thought, what the hell, the investment will pay for itself in less than no time, so Wahbert bought.

At the beginning, the company was performing and prospects looked good. Most of all, Wahbert loved the idea of holding blue chip stock. It was empowering. After awhile though, Wahbert began to notice that the controllers were not always accountable. Furthermore, the company absolutely refused to declare dividends, even though it was making money and had massive reserves! Worst of all, Wahbert realised that she was only a minority interest and the company treats its minority interest like dirt.

Readers, choose your ending:

Ending One
The next time Wahbert thinks to "make her money grow", she will put it in topsoil and water daily.



Ending Two
I wonder in how many more ways I can objectify and disparage the Stapler.

Prefab Angpows

Christmas and New Year just passed and Wahbert is counting the days until the Chinese New Year and the public holidays that come with it. One WoW-ian was commenting on how much she was looking forward to the actual preparation leading up to CNY. Wahbert remembers a time long ago when she actually enjoyed shopping for CNY goodies, decorating the house and helping her mom wrap "angpows", little red packets with moolah in em. Good stuff.

Thinking back, Wahbert cannot for the life of her imagine what thrill there is to be gotten from sealing away good money to be given to random strangers, particularly when it is her inheritance that is going into it. But Wahbert supposes that since it has been done for centuries it must continue to be so. Far be it for Wahbert to stand in the way of tradition, especially when Wahbert is still on the receiving end. But the actual task of filling angpows, now that is a different story, a needless senseless task. so Wahbert got this idea. Since it is always brand new crisp notes that people want and you have to go to the bank to get those, and since the banks are the ones who supply most of the red packets, why not prefab the angpows? Picture this:

Man goes up to cashier and say, I want to break this RM100 note into fivers and could I have some red packets please. Imagine how delighted he would be if the cashier gives him 20 little red packets each tenderly filled with a crisp RM5 note, neatly folded and sealed to perfection? After all, isn't consistency the beauty of mass-production? The bank earns the customer's goodwill, Wahbert gets some holiday money from the bank. Everybody's happy.

Wahbert's production line will consist of a bunch of children (highly trained in the ancient art of paper-folding), chopsticks and glue. Perhaps Wahbert will charge parents a daycare fee for taking on the kids. Perhaps not, Wahbert is in a festive mood. Naturally the children will be paid... in candy. If they're good.