The Shit Hits the Fan

My father was an old-fashioned accountant and he died last year at 91. Up until the last 6 months, he could read a balance sheet and set of accounts better than any one I have ever met or read. At 90 he sent me an analysis he had done on one of his investments and it was stunning. He had picked up on something that no one else in the market had figured out and I was embarrassed that I couldn't have done the same.

I have just gone through the family investments doing a monthly update and have looked at every investment really hard. At least 15% of a very substantial portfolio is now at serious risk with another 10% 'frozen' in a relatively good finance company for 5 years. My father had only lost $5,000 in 70 years of investing (Equiticorp) and has received parts of that back. To lose the amount now likely to go would have finished him off.

He would have also been distraught at the current economic disaster, having been a child in a single parent household through the depression followed by 6 years as a serviceman. Talk about a blighted life through childhood and into his 30s. While I miss him immensely, in many ways I am glad he is not here to see the current economic situation and to see so much of his hard work and thrift 'stolen' by the near-criminal management of finance companies. He would have also been worried for us kids and for my mum.