More on Finance

OK - my last post was short and dumb, and I know that. I would love to tell you about this Finance class that I'm taking right now, but I can't.

Why, you ask. The answer is simple. Because I don't know what's going on in this class at all. We keep talking about required rates of return and expected rates of return and present value and future value and it all sounds like gibbelty-gook too me.

Last night, we spent a few hours on NPV and IRR and MIRR and IP. I'm noticing that finance people love their acronyms. They also have symbols for everything, but sometimes those symbols have more than one meaning. I can't even type an "r-hat" on this keyboard, so why should I know that an "r-hat" is different than an "r-line".

I will say that I find it sort of fun, in an ironic way, that we are studying finance while there is a major financial meltdown happening around us. I don't think I can even say that the class is helping me understand the crisis any better. I'm getting most of my information from MPR, and they explain things as well as I think that I can understand it.

In all, I'm wondering if my MBA education is making me a more bitter consumer. I have less faith in capitalism and our government than ever.

In better news, I was able to preach again recently!