Month: December 2009

In his latest movie ‘The Invention of Lying’, Ricky Gervais lives in a world where everyone always tells the truth no matter how insulting it may be. There is no such thing as being able to tell a lie. Not whoppers and not little white harmless ones. Until one day Ricky Gervais develops the skill to lie.

“Of course I’ll respect you in the morning.”

The premise is the reverse to the Jim Carrey movie ‘Liar, Liar’ where by some magical circumstance Carrey’s character finds he must always tell the truth. Always!

“Yes, your bum does look big in those pants.”

Both scenarios create humours social interactions (actually they don’t really but stay with me) which I’m not going to outline here – rent the movies. Or even better, download them.

Lying in all its forms is nothing more than hiding from the truth. But lying can be instigated through fear. The fear of repercussions, the unknown. It can then be argued somewhat circularly that we are fearful of the truth. While it is said that the truth can set us free human nature is generally concerned not with freedom but with protection. Fear has become on a geopolitical scale the most insidious method or tactic by which governments of all flavours control the will of the people.

The answer is not to take on large and heavily organised governments or even subsets of them but to look within and find the strength to over our own individual fears. Beyond threat to life and limb of fire, sharp objects and the myriad of Australian creepy crawlies that surround us, but the simplest of things.

1. Answering the phone even when it says, ‘blocked’ number because it could be the bank asking for a payment.
2. Asking that girl in the café for lunch even though she might say no.
3. Ringing the head hunter to ask the progress or result of an application even though they might say no.
4. Ringing someone to give them bad news just because it’s going to be a hard conversation.
5. Do the work/chore/whatever now and stop procrastinating.

Add to my list in the comments section the things that you fear. Perhaps it’s writing in the comments section of someone’s blog because other people might see it and think you’re weird…

Each year in Australia there are about 10 mega draw lotteries. These are the ones where the first division prize is more money than God.

Last night one such draw for $40million took place and was one by a single individual who will now have more ‘friends’ than God.

Mostly people who win these prizes are broke again in a short period of time. They may have some trinkets and some cars and some property but generally the lion share has been pissed up against a wall or given to family and friends.

The only way IMHO to act when something like this comes your way is to do nothing.

My emergency plan for what to do when a multi multi million dollar lottery prize comes my way:

1. As the money doesn’t actually arrive for a couple of weeks (Police checks and anti-fraud test are conducted) it’s planning time.
2. Create a team: lawyer, accountant, financial planners.
3. Have the lawyer and accountant create a charity.
4. Get the financial planners to start looking at investment options. Step one here is to open a margin account offset against 100% of the winnings. You’ll see why this is important later.
5. The aim of this plan is give away 100% of the interest earned every year. But remember, we now have two piles of cash; the winnings and the margin loan.
6. Invest both, not conservatively and not outrageously risky either. A little risk is good. A lot of risk is heart attack city.
7. Now create another team of advisors from business, charity, science and the arts. Three from each area are required.
8. Promote the charity and ask for submissions from the public as to where the money should go. Remember, it’s just the interest that’s being given away not the principle so you can do this every year.
9. Have your team review all submissions and vote on two winning entries from each category.
10. The president of the charity can award an overall winner to one of the eight semi finalists.
11. Each winning submission (2 from each of 4 categories being 8 in total) receive 1/10th of the interest earned for that year. Another 1/10 is given as the presidents prize. 1/10 is reinvested so that the principal always grows so each year there should be even more money to give away.
12. Eg assuming a lacklustre 10% return on $40mil each recipient would get about $400,000 dollars. The next year they would get $410,000. SImple figure only and counting taxes or fees etc.
13. The other $40mil margin loan is earning interest at the same rate but costing 5% in interest making a gross return of $2million pa. Who couldn’t live, very fucking happily, on $2M pa and have given away over $3.6M to worthy recipients.