Money for Nothing...Dire Straits

I have been in a fairly acerbic mood today having spent time ploughing through the quality end of my trade press online and in the traditional paper format. I was struck by a couple of stories that reminded me that a number of the people "in charge" or at least in positions of power seem to have grown up in the 1980's and have somehow connected the Dire Straights hit "Money for Nothing" with their general raison d'etre.

First my goat was wrangled by Euroblundersrus having read an article in Money Marketing suggesting that Countries bailing out those, wait for it (technical term)... bankrupt nations should not be paid their agreed level of interest, but be doing it out of the goodness of neighbourlyness. Well, we're not talking about lending a bag or sugar or fixing a leaking drainpipe... but bailing out nations that have messed up their public services and promised money that they don't have. So to suggest that the risk of doing this is not rewarded is plainly a failure to understand risk or business or money...which is a little bit of a short-coming if you are working in the European Parliament presumably to encourage nations to act responsibly and in manner that is not delusional.

Secondly I read another article suggesting that people (that's you AND ME) do not understand that Absolute Return funds can go down as well as up. I know its a complex subject, but even Dell Boy knew that nothing goes up forever and that there are risks in everything. Yet we are being told that the term is misleading people...well is it? if you see a fund called an Absolute Return Fund.. do you assume it can only go up? Perhaps I'm wrong on this.. but the sort of people I advise are not covered in velcro and fuzzy felt,only coming to life when a puppeteer is around.

The world doesn't give us all that we would like it to. We won't always get what we want. Good times come and go, but there are inescapable life truths that are, well... inescapable.. money is not free, even if we are in dire straights.