Grrl Power #348 – Ride the green pony
Originally I thought I’d put the PPO in Sydney’s hand since it’s red like the apple in her daydream, but I didn’t want it to look like Sydney was sticking him up or about to accidentally blow a hole in him and the building so I had to change it to the wad of paper.
I hope the advice Aurelius is giving Sydney is remotely sound. In terms of “making a living off your webcomic” I’m doing extraordinarily well (with a big thanks for all the continued support over at Patreon and from the Amazon and Paypal links) but that’s still a far cry from financial adviser territory. (There’s probably fewer than 10 webcomics that meet that bar) But I had him give some at least common sense sounding advice. I’m sure among my readers there are a few people who actually know what they’re doing when it comes to investing.
Normally I like putting (cramming) a bit more content on each page, but I knew the week I was working on this page had a camping trip planned for that weekend. I knew I wouldn’t get any work done for the 3 days on the trip and it happened to work out that I could do this page with Sydney slowly zoning out while Aurelius talked about money, which was slightly less work than usual.
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What, no Argo? I refused to believe that Sydney isn’t a Xena fan.
Mostly cause I only had so much room.
Bucephalus shoulda been his first name. And only a mighty stallion would do.
Don’t know if Sydney would know this, but offering a horse an apple that way is a great way to get your fingers bitten. Put your hand out flat, palm up, and offer the apple that way. Even then, it’s not quite foolproof against even the nicest horse. They get REALLY enthusiastic over apples.
I was going to mention this. Horses got some wicked chompers. Warhorses were actually trained to bite the enemies’ heads. They could do so with enough force to crush a skull!
Bite and batter with their hooves. I expect this was one of the reasons warrior cavalry were so feared because you’ve got an armored several hundred pound trained duo of angry barreling at you around 20 mph if not more.
Depending on the breed of horse, more like half to full ton.
Indeed, Warhorses of those days were as big as the heaviest plow horses, though bred for different characteristics. This is also why pike lines were so important, as that was the only way to hold against cavalry short of a strong palisade.
Try a mule who’s dam was a Shire. My grandfather had a team of them that he used to plow with.
You ever see those Clydesdale horses that the Budweiser beer company has? About that size…Friggin’ huge, they are!
War horses varied by culture and century based on the breeding stock available. In medieval Europe a charon or clidesdayle is about the right size of horse. In eastern europe and the middle east for most of the same period it would have been an arabian or prussian breed. You’re definitely thinking of the European style.
Also I have to point out that the idea of named breeds is a recent innovation. It used to simply be thought of as “Lord Pemberton has an exceedingly fine line of horses in his stable.” They might even locally be known as Pembertons. The term Clydesdale actually comes from their origin, Clydesdale, Scotland, much as Persians were from Persia.
Bah. Not Persians, that’s cats. I meant Arabians from Arabia.
Horses today can be out fitted with a full armor package if need be for heavy street action. No doubt it is expensive, I don’t see them with much armor if any usually.
That’s because a mmodern gun punches right through medieval armor.
There used to be a troupe of Lipizzaners that summered near here. I went to see them a couple of times, and while they were going through all their trained maneuvers and everyone was oohing and aahing over how pretty they were, all I could think was what happened when they did those in the middle of a melee. When a half-ton of horse leaps straight up in the air and kicks out with both back hooves together at head level in the middle of a press of men, the result would not be what I’d call “pretty”.
The Lipizzaner dressage is derived from rider-mount combat training, or rather it is combat training performed without opponents. Equine kata.
World War I Russian Artillery Horses. British artillery takes a team of 50 horses to move a massive cannon around…Russian team? Two horses and a guy sipping some good Borscht.
Lucky sydney its a money horse not a war horse
My dad had a horse, the thing was so tame it’d eat a potato-chip-sized slice of apple from your fingertips so gently, you’d swear the horse was just sucking on it.
I agree with Mandorin on the “dont do it like that if you want ypur fingers intact” thing, I have seen people with those injuries, and my grandfather always said so too and he was a farmer. That being said Sydney does not strike me as a farming girl, or a person with basic knowlege of safety conduct with her imaginary horses so its actually obvious she will give the apple in two fingers.
Was my exact reaction.
Whatever people might think, horses in nature are quite vicious. So do most other grazers.
There’s very little of grazing animals that do not express unnecessary violence against their own kind.
Used to play low-goal polo. Went out in the pasture to get one of my horses to ride, wasn’t playing, just wanted to ride. All at once a fight breaks out between about 3 other horses, and BOOM, suddenly one of ’em has a compound leg fracture. Had to call the vet and have it put down.
Yup. The weak ones get picked off by predators.
Gotta go with Bucephalus, a horse that only the Great Macedonian King of Conquerers could tame.
Ha! +1
Wasn’t the secret to that the fact that Alexander deduced that the horse was afraid of it’s own shadow and so always kept him facing the sun?
Honestly, what can be better than Sleipnir?
“Why yes, I do ride around on my grandson/horse who my son gave birth to after shapeshifting into a mare. Why do you ask?”
Man norse mythology sometimes even gives the Greeks a run for their money in the weirdness department.
Nah. The Nordic peoples win in the mythology weirdness. Hands down.
Melted ice formed a being.
Men and women spawned from its armpit.
Frost ogres were begotten by two legs of the same being… Yes, legs.
A cow formed from thawing frost.
Said cow licked another man out of salty ice.
*** (This man was Odin’s grandpa.)
The Greeks on the other hand have Chaos as a starting point. Gaea (mother earth) was either there in the chaos, or spawned by Love depending on what account you read. From there, Gaea actually give birth (Alone). *** Gaea (earth) and Uranus (sky) worked from there.
Not really a contest in my mind.
*** is when we start to see more traditional ‘boy likes girl’ situations for how things are born.
Nordic myths can be a little wacky, yes.
In one story, Thor nearly drowned while crossing a river because a giantess was urinating into it upstream.
All you seem to get in Greek myths is rape, attempted rape, and murder.
Not to mention incest.
That river thing… yeah, that’s probably someone’s fetish.
To be fair the Greeks lived in a sexy climate, i.e. prone to wearing skimpy clothing because it was hot. Hard to feel sexy under layers of fur in a blizzard.
“Yes, I raped her, your honor, but have you seen the toga she’s just barely wearing?!”
This is what first popped into my head when I read your post. I hope you didn’t mean it this way and I’m just being stupid.
The Hindu myths have their share of rapes too. Rape is so damn common in myths. Men on women. Just like in our reality.
There’s also a surprising amount of women raping men too…Not nearly as much as vice versa, but it happens. It’s also been noted that men getting raped by women doesn’t get reported to the authorities very much either; guys figure it would get their Man Cards revoked, or something…
I always knew Sydney wanted a pony.
:)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1829/comment-page-1#comment-373831
Hey everyone! Yorp is Back!
Yay!
Yorpie Yorpie Yorpie!!!! We missed you!!!!! Stand still next time!!!!! :P
Hey Yorp! Where’ve you been, boy? I’ve had everyone out looking for you…even Cerberus!
https://acidsquirrel.com/post/81873
Don’t let her pony-lust get you down Yorp. I’m sure she wants a puppy too!
Woo hoo! Was getting concerned Yorp, not seen you on here in a while. And to “thevoidcity” what lady doesn’t like stroking a puppy or two. Ask Dabbler, she loves to play with puppies :P
Aww, thank you all for your various comments. I had a protracted ISP problem, otherwise I would have at least made the odd comment here and there. But it has been nice beach weather, so all was not lost. Even though I missed y’all.
Was lovely doing my catch up though. Mind you I almost ruptured a lung, laughing at Sydney’s Queen of Salt scene!
Hers or someone elses?
I am surprised Sydney did not come up with Incitatus, the horse of the Roman emperor Caligula.
She has someone named after a Roman emperor sitting right in front of her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitatus
Fun fact, Caligula made his horse a senator. So extra pizzazz with that name.
In these more advanced times, we have learned that political office can often be filled by a horse’s ass, rather than the whole animal. Progress!
So, that makes the whole of Washington D.C. nothing less than the world’s biggest stable?
…We need someone like Hercules to repeat that Labour that involved cleaning out the Agean Stables…
So… someone to divert a river … wait let me look at a map right quick… so the Potomic river in specific, and really only a little bit to actually wash out the house of representatives.
Why stop there? It’s the whole friggin’ city that stinks!
They do produce more manure than anywhere else outside of China or North Korea.
no these days we tend to get the bulls ass in office, mainly then of course coming out with the bovine brown stuff for comments.
That’s why I always vote for Pulvapies… for well-being and hygiene,
Before you denigrate that you should understand the concept of “Point deer make horse” loyalty tests. They are tests looking for people that will support whatever narrative you put out. It still occurs today with things like Bruce Jenner, the tribe that runs Hollywood wants to be able to destroy the career of the Next Mel Gibson before he gets powerful enough to speak against them.
Mikey,
If I wanted to read anti-semitic comments, I would visit Stormfront.
Since I don’t, I suggest you visit Stormfront instead. I’m sure you would find a much more appreciative audience there.
If you can’t post a comment without making an anti-semitic comment, I suggest you don’t, at least not here.
At least it’s a beautiful horse…
Maybe, but still a horse is a horse is a horse, of course, of course, and even by any other name, it would still just as sweet (or something like that).
Panel 4 : Collector’s Items. This did not spark off a greed gush from a COMIC STORE OWNER?
You mean she doesn’t have a wish list subsection of “The List”?
BTW we haven’t seen an entry in the list in what, days? (waggles eyebrows)
She’s a comic book store owner. She probably has a better understanding of the market for, value of, and so forth and so on for collectors’ items than most brokers do.
Way I figure it, if she’s smart, she’ll put…call it half to three quarters of her paycheck (after living expenses) into her comic store, and have the rest invested elsewhere. That will give her enough diversity so that, even if the comic book store starts to fail, she can pull out and still have a comfortable amount stashed away somewhere, while still putting in the cash to upgrade her place of business and take advantage of the new opportunities that have suddenly opened up.
Since she’s clearly getting enough to get by on even with just the store (for now, anyway), I would advise you to have continue living relatively frugally (as much so as is practical, anyway), so that she can maximize her available cash to invest. This would allow her to put…call it twelve times the store’s current yearly profits into upgrades, expansion, and so forth and so on. Because she is unlikely to be able to do much with just bi-weekly purchases, she’s going to need to look at taking out some business loans against her superhero income soon, and the interest rates on those loans will be…ludicrous. Banks traditionally hate loaning to people working in highly dangerous occupations, preachers, and…unfortunately, I have forgotten the third group. But my point is, until banks get a feeling for just how dangerous her job is, and how committed the government is to supporting the ARCHON program in the long term, they are likely to charge a fairly high interest rate–figure somewhere from ten to twelve percent, I would expect, unless she and Joel find a way to essentially launder the money, so that’s its not obviously dependent upon Sydney’s survival and ARCHON’s utility. And yes, this is a fairly high rate of interest, especially for a bank making a commercial loan.
Depending on how big Sydney’s store gets, she may want to incorporate, or, eventually, franchise. Even if she does not, she has not only just gotten a major infusion of capital, she’s gotten a relatively huge advertising presence, and one that is highly likely to work EXTREMELY well with Arianna’s schemes to bring good publicity to the supers of ARCHON…up to, and including, any action figures and merchandise that Arianna might commission for fans/followers. In fact, some careful commercial negotiations might let Sydney convince Arianna to run a trial run for new ARCHON products from the store Sydney and Joel own, since this is a place that would very obviously have direct access to most of the superheros in question. Add to this the simple fact of Halo’s presence on national televison, and her shop would be looking at greatly increased revenue just from the free advertising.
SOmething you might want to consider–unless Joel and Sydney are very careful with their relationship (both business and personal), the stress of success could well result in their partnership falling apart. This is actually not all that uncommon, particularly when each party contributes a necessary set of skills that the other doesn’t really understand. A prime example of this is Adidas and Puma, which were originally one company until the two founders split to compete with each other directly. This is, obviously, something that a number of the more subtle supervillians would logically try to exploit–if they can put pressure on Sydney from outside of ARCHON, that would make her that much less capable in combat, and would make her less of a threat when the balloon goes up, and they have to take her out. Plus, Sydney would be…pretty much the ideal counterpoint to Maxima, and would be perceived as giving ARCHON access to areas of public opinion management that they would not normally have.
Question, by the way–does Sydney just carry comic books, or does she include visual novels, manga, and other stuff? Does she carry non-super-hero comics? What about anime? Does she include action figures, collector’s card games, and so on? Does she include games rulebooks, or were the ones we saw before just from her private collection? How often does she hold games,and are they just RPGs, or is she configured to be able to play wargames as well?
What, if any, plans do she and Joel have for the store, should it prove successful?
Since you’ve stated that you wanted to have the story be as much about the reactions to the fights as anything else, these are probably things that you should think carefully about. I mean, obviously, right at first, she’s going to want to invest in some good bullet-proof glass, and a wide variety of other security measures. After that, she might want to look at expanding inventory selection, acquiring more square footage, and, obviously, bringing more employees on board. Depending on how much of a boost her ARCHON work gives the store, she might well have to relocate eventually, possibly to a custom-built facility (Dabbler would have LOTS of fun with this, I’m sure) with extensive anti-super defenses built in from the ground up.
All in all, I’m sure that you can have lots of fun with this…but Sydney, being a business owner, will likely think in terms of her business first, and other investments second.
Banks not wanting to insure/loan to Soldiers was the exact reason USAA (United Services Automobile Association) was founded, and since Archon falls under DoD, Sydney is eligible for membership. She could get significantly lower rates than most “civilian” banks would offer her.
I did not know this. Cool.
Regardless, however, the point remains–Sydney’s first priority is not likely going to be amassing a fortune, or even saving for retirement. She already has something she wants to do with her money, and that something is her comic book store. Hence the reason she is tuning out the investment adviser’s actually pretty good advice–it’s not that she is letting her ADHD run away from her, it’s that she realizes (and he doesn’t) that his advise is actually not relevant. Well. Except for the whole paying off the debts bit…and, again, that’s something that, as a business owner, she has to treat very carefully, because a lot of businesses find it much more profitable (and frequently safer, although I don’t really understand this bit) to operate off of margins than to use a strict cash and carry basis. Again, if she is careful about how she does this, she could turn this into a major boon for the comic store…and if not, she’s not likely to be substantially worse off than otherwise.
“Safer” because with loan they have a larger bankroll to fall back on. Yes, they have to make their loan payments with interest, but consider the following scenarios:
You have $1, and expect to earn $2/month.
You have $10 and expect to earn $2/month, but you have to pay $1/month for the next 10 months ($9 loan + interest; I think this comes to about a 23.5% APR, which is quite high).
Which one makes reacting easier if you suddenly have to pay $5? (Fines, accidents, market shifts – there are a number of possible sudden shocks.)
Point of information: I’m a USAA member and they are by far the best bank / insurance company I’ve ever dealt with. A few weeks ago I called them about setting a travel advisory and I was shocked when I had to wait an entire 90 seconds before a human being picked up. I’ve been rear-ended twice, it’s never affected my rates, and they’ve sent me to repair shops that provide loaner vehicles. I went through a car wash and the windshield cracked; they had a glass-repair guy at my house inside of an hour, at no charge.
Fantastic company. Cannot recommend them enough.
You are massively overthinking this. She can just throw the money in a savings account and she’ll be fine.
Savings accounts accrue interest at a rate less than inflation, so only using a savings account is barely better than hiding it under your bed or using it as a bed.
Investing in other avenues is extremely important to being able to afford things later on.
Depend son whether you want to get richer, or simply have your money safe (which is what banks were originally intended for)
Savings accounts, unless tied to tax-deferral instruments, pay at or below inflation. The best are only slightly above inflation on average. If you want to make reasonable money from your bank, buy the shares on the stock market.
It still comes down to whether you want to increase your money, or simply keep it safe (banks are not designed to increase your money, at least not by much)
There are special high yield savings accounts that give a much higher interest rate than what you and I normally get, actually.
Not to mention other financial instruments like long term CDs.
I think this is a country-specific thing. While I’m sure the dollar is inflating rapidly, the Euro is doing slightly better, so good savings account deals actually get you net interest.
The UK has never been in the euro. The UK pound is one of the top 5 traded currencies worldwide, and the oldest modern currency. I didn’t imagine that anyone in the English-speaking world would be ignorant of its existence.
Electrobod,
Since Mikey is also making anti-semitic statements, I would assume that he is that ignorant.
What’s a “peener”?
Given the context, (once I found it, at least) I would assume that it refers to the male organ.
Getting really tired of this troll.
I am not overthinking this, I am applying training and experience at being in Sydney’s position, and knowledge from years of observation of others in that same position. Sydney is a small business owner. Period. End of statement. She is not an employee. She is not a lottery winner. She is not some random nephew or niece whose super-rich uncle just died. She owns a business, which automatically gives her a perspective that most people who suddenly find themselves wealthy lack–she knows how important that money is, and she already has a pretty good idea of what to do with it (whether or not she is correct or not may be a different issue). Part of the results of this, we have already seen–unlike the other supers we’ve seen, for example, she appears to keep a running tab/budget in her head concerning how much money she has available to spend (hence the reason why a forty dollar lunch pisses her off) versus how much her business will require to operate and/or expand. And yes, there are others, and no, I’m not going archive diving just yet to find the examples.
Further, she is a small business owner who has started her business in an age when that industry is apparently dying, and she appears to be surviving. Further, the shop appears to be surviving even though both she and Joel appear to be fairly young, and without much if anything in the way of outside resources, which means that she has to be highly intelligent, and a very good salesman, both of which tend to lead to a sort of self-confidence that most investors lack. Were Sydney not on a team with Maxima and Dabbler, I would expect her to dominate the team completely, just through sheer force of self-confidence and charisma (this is something I have to be careful of when I talk to clients–I’ve actually lost sales this way, and my ego isn’t backed up by superpowers or by having a physical store and employees(?)).
Ergo, it is extremely logical that her first priority would be investing her paycheck in her business, not in stocks, bonds, or annuities. She is not going to just throw the money into a savings account. She is not going to buy into a mutual fund. And she is not going to start playing the market on her own, and betting that she can pick stocks better than anybody else. None of these interest her, and most of them are a lot farther outside her control than she is happy with. She is going to put her money into something that DOES interest her: her comic shop. Which is likely where the majority of her money and time have been going anyway.
By not asking any questions as to her debt status, employment status, current finances, or ongoing investments, the financial adviser, while giving her good advice, has either been massively insulting, or has revealed himself to be a complete tool. Neither is somebody who Sydney is likely to listen to, and both of whom she will present her completely nuts side to at every opportunity, just in case she gets a chance to negotiate a contract with him (at which point she will take him to the cleaners). Seriously? I would be (and have) acted in much the same way, for precisely the same reasons, because the chance that his advice will match her circumstances is just about nil.
I would not be surprised if that’s going to come up in the next strip or two – with the financial advisor apologizing for having been set up. He came in expecting a loon. He finds himself facing a professional, and a quite competent one in the field in question. (Bunny Ears Lawyer, perhaps, but still demonstrably competent to run a business.)
Dude, this isn’t a lottery. She is getting a check this big every week. She can buy a dozen existing comic shops, 2 dozen. There is literally no way to fuck this up. Savings account will be fine. The check is 6 figures every 2 weeks. She doesn’t need to invest, doesn’t need to grow or whatever.
The most important thing about Joel’s Comic Shop is that Sydney cares about it. It is now, unofficially, impossible for it to fail. If it starts to, and Sydney (aka, about a third of the nation’s actual military) starts to be mopey at her real job of super hero-ing, someone will have the brains to white knight it.
Really, though, Sydney is wealthy beyond her bank account. Wealth more or less transforms into man hours in the end, and no amount of human labor can replicate her abilities. Sydney’s services are literally priceless. They write her large checks, but its not like those numbers couldn’t go up if she started musing about being properly appreciated.
Yeah…. that is the same kind of thinking that gets pro athletes in BIG trouble. Even if you earn a lot of money for a lot of years – you still need to handle that money wisely and plan for the future.
Also – just like there is no such thing as “idiotproof” – there is no such thing as “too much money to spend it all”.
I think you missed something. It is not “Joe’s Comic Shop”. It is Syndey & Joel’s comic shop. They are co-owners. She doesn’t just care about it, she OWNS it.
Yea, there is more to life than money. Following your passions is important.
Up until the money runs out. Survival then becomes the immediate priority.
Imagine if after a time it is found that one of her investments has been all over the tv and becomes a “job” they need fixing. Maybe a Resident Evil kind of corporation only bad, worse than bad.
Comic store owners are first and foremost collectors. They want more in the store so their own collection will benefit. Many of them live frugally and collect with every cent they can apply outside of the basic living expense. Give them a new source of income and they sprout new figures like stubble on a burly man’s chin.
Folks, let’s do remember that this is a webcomic and not try to drag it down too close to earth. I’m really not interested in watching Sydney do her taxes. Let her play with her newfound wealth a bit. Remember, she’ll be getting ANOTHER check that size in 3 or 4 weeks.
People, let’s do remember that this is a webcomic and not try to drag it down too close to earth. I’m really not interested in watching Sydney do her taxes. Let her play with her newfound wealth a bit. Remember, she’ll be getting ANOTHER check that size in 3 or 4 weeks.
Fairly sure she had already drifted off by that time
So how is Joel going to react to how much archon is paying her?
Friend Sydney, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal, who happens to have enough money to keep the store afloat….. (said with lots of smiles)
I don’t think they need to worry about that anymore. Did you miss the panel where she said the register was about to explode?
Considering she’s getting paid for a job where she can potentially die if she’s not careful, and considering that he’s her long-time friend, I’m pretty sure he’d react like any friend would.
You might would be surprised at how a sudden influx of money on one side can change the dynamics of a friendship. I’ve seen it, and it usually aint pretty.
Hrm, well if I were trying to give Sydney solid financial planning advice I think I would go with something like:
1. Live within your means
2. You are making a lot more money now, avoid the common trap of spending a whole lot more money now
3. Live within your means
4. You are making a lot more money now, that doesn’t mean you will be making a lot more money forever – put some away in case you have an injury or power crisis or a shadowy conspiracy shuts down our funding.
5. Live within your means
6. For that money you put away we are going to have to discuss boring accountant topics like asset allocation, risk tolerance, asset classes, inflation risk, time horizon, and tax ramifications. Just think of accounting as a role-playing game and these are the stats you are trying to min-max.
You forgot to mention ‘7. Live within your means.’
#6 is nicely stated in Sydney speak :D She’d totally get that, but Aurelius doesn’t strike me as a gamer dude to know the language.
For #4, might he be being set up to make her comic shop into a backup HQ/emergency safehouse? “It’s known this is your business, so how about we get you some deals on security? Yes, these might be a little much for just a comic shop, but we’ll make it cheap enough. Of course we’ll make sure not to scare the customers!”
My response to an income increase is just “Keep living like I have been, throw the extra in a savings account for emergencies.” I doubt that would change for a super sized income increase. Except maybe buying healthier food once I can afford it. Probably not as effective as investing it, but it seems safer that way and I’d rather have a little safe money than a chance at losing my money.
Um…you do know that this leaves you a lot more vulnerable to things like identity theft, right? Which, personally, I would think to be a bigger risk that just shoving your extra money into something like a mutual fund, and leaving it alone for the next twenty years.
Plus…. Money left in your savings account appreciates at (usually) somewhere between 0.25% and 0.5% per year. Inflation in the United States generally hovers between .5% and 2% per year. So in other words, by leaving your money in your savings account, you are effectively losing an average of about 0.875% of your savings every year, as the rising prices mean that your money simply won’t go as far as it used to. In other words, by leaving it in your savings accounts, you are effectively burning it for warmth. Seriously–unless you own your own business, the Aurelius’s advice is actually pretty good. Leaving your money to rot in a savings account is not.
Actually there is a good chance to get negative interest if the banks can win the war on cash. In Cyprus all savings accounts got money taken out of them as a “TAX”
You’re not including account fees. Money in a savings account (or for that matter, a CI or GIC) is ALWAYS experiencing negative growth; they are not significantly better than shoving cash under your mattress. Banks don’t build skyscrapers in every city by helping their CUSTOMERS make money.
I’m glad our FA here starts by mentioning mutual funds (after paying off Bad Debt like credit cards and lines of credit — the compounding interest types of debt that can so easily and quickly skyrocket out of control). I’m a “fan” of Mutual Funds too (though I think that’s a pretty flippant way to phrase it) because they make me the most money over the long term, (and I have this silly notion in my head that I’d like to retire someday rather than live out my grey-haired years on an ever-shrinking welfare check, while my medical costs and overall cost of living keep increasing).
Don’t go to your bank for mutual funds however. First off they’ll be trying the whole time to push you into a different kind of “investment” that makes them more money than you (assuming you do well enough to break even). Bank mutual funds all live in the 3rd & 4th quartile… which in lay terms mean they make less money than even an average mutual fund, very consistently. If you’re in North America, you could research the Lipper Awards, which is like the Oscars for investments, and see which mutual fund companies have been in the top 3 consistently over the past 5 or 10 years. Those would all be very good mutual funds to invest in.
(Or if you don’t have that kind of time, the last time I checked myself, the Concert series from Primerica & AGF were #1 8 out of 10 years, and #2 in the years they missed the top spot.)
Seg funds are also a good kind of investment where you can actually grow your money reliably. They have an extra feature where you’re guaranteed at least 75% of your initial investment if you die (so your family gets it) or at the fund’s maturity date (usually 10-20-30 years in advance, if this is going to be your retirement fund). Common Sense Funds (also from Primerica/AGF) are the series I’d recommend for seg funds. They have NEVER needed to use that guarantee.
Both of these types of investments (Mutual Funds & Seg Funds) are dynamic, which means they go up and down, much like the stock market. However (also like the market, which they invest in) they go up a lot more than they ever go down, over the long term. They are not a good investment if you need the money in the short term, like less than 3 years. They are the best possible investment if you need to retire in 10+ years (or send your toddler to college, or similar long-term investments)
The difference between investing in a MF or Seg and buying stocks? Presumably you are not a stock broker yourself. You have a job, a life, something else to do with your time then spend 50 hours a week thoroughly investigating companies before choosing to buy stock in them. These Funds hire Fund managers, who are like full-time brokers who have fantastic track records for success, like 10+ years in a row always making positive returns. They are the best of the best, and the best funds hire the best of the best of the best. It is their FULL TIME job to choose companies to invest in. They can do it better than you can, no matter how clever you think you are. Let them make you money! They also get paid a % of the fund’s growth, so they’re making themselves rich at the same time they make you rich.
That’s vastly different from your bank, where the goal is to transform as much of your money into their money as they think they can get away with.
Let’s see… what else did our fictional FA say…
Real Estate and venture capitalism can both be profitable investments, but those are going to require more work and personal time and effort on your part, usually. Mutual and Seg Funds are more “fill out this form, sign this check, and you’re done. Go back to your life. We’ll mail you reports on how fast your money is growing. Call me if you have any questions.” I like the latter. I have shit to do. :P
Collector’s items… That would only be an investment if your intention is to buy new things at their retail value, and wait years, decades, for them to (you hope) grow in value, and then SELL them. If you are keeping these things for yourself and building your own collection, then you are the COLLECTOR, not the INVESTOR. Money is flowing from your bank account INTO your collection, not FROM your collection flowing into your bank account. Given Sidney’s personality, I would be trying to steer her as far AWAY from thinking of collector’s items as an investment strategy as possible! O.o
Wow… I ended up writing a full lesson here. Sorry for the wall-of-text. Useful stuff, I promise, but perhaps this wasn’t the best venue. I didn’t plan to write so much at the start. It just flowed. ^_^;
I hope the advice Aurelius is giving Sydney is remotely sound.
You’re doing pretty good, for someone who is not themselves a financial advisor (I am, BTW, since 2007). There’s a couple things I might want to phrase differently, some additional things I’d mention, some things that might do more harm than good to mention, but you haven’t had him give her BAD advice yet.
Admittedly I had some of the same concerns as you did when you introduced this character. Thinking something like, “Oh hell… please tell me Dave’s not going to have a Financial Advisor vomit up bank propaganda to his already-impressed-with-him audience of thousands? They don’t need help spreading their self-servingly bad advice; they spend millions of OUR money on advertizing for that.”
I was pleasantly surprised. Overall I’d grade this as roughly 80%. Good, but not quite perfect.
Well… so far. :P
I also acknowledge that there’s a need to create comedy here, that might require bending the dialogue slightly in some directions. I get that. I just keep picturing Aurelius here about to break into a sales pitch for a Universal Life Insurance policy and 10,000 comic fans thinking that sounds like a good idea and phoning up State Farm (or whomever they remember the last commercial of) and cringing… hard.
Would you like me to pre-read the rest of the upcoming dialogue from Aurelius, Dave, just to offer my comments/suggestions? I would consider it a worthwhile public service to do so for free.
i always have said if i ever came into Money i’d buy ONE crazy thing to get it out of my system the rest would be invested save what i put asside to start a busness and set up an account to cover living exsenses Not sexy but i come from a family that had Money back in the day and it was gone in 3 generations (wich is apparently the norm)
For me, Step 1: Figure out how to best resolve the other steps without accruing an overly large tax bill for myself or the others involved in further steps.
Step 2: If sufficiently large income gain, there’d probably be some gifts offered to some close friends of mine, to help give a cushion for their living situation. Much of this could be college fund contributions for the kids. This is mainly where I’d want to check “is there a right and wrong way to do the gifts, tax-wise?”
Step 3: New computer. I’ve been planning to upgrade my processor for over a year now, and I can probably divert $1000 to a new processor/case/motherboard/power supply, with plenty left over to look into video card or more hard drive space (maybe a SSD). It’s top of my “treat” list.
Step 4: Invest the rest and carry on as usual, but with less frustration at big and tall clothing price tags.
The first generation creates the wealth, the second generation maintains it, and the third generation squanders it.
Only if you pretend there was not death tax of up to 50% from one generation to another, there is no inflation or people like Soros/Madoff. Given that in the 1st 4 years of Obama’s presidency the value of the dollar dropped 25%, and $10 face value of 1964 quarters can be melted down for ~$180 worth of silver, you are falling for the trap Martin Luther wrote about in his book of all financial scams known to man in the 1500’s
This tax only affects assets in excess of $5 million. Please learn a little
Well the estate tax could have eaten 1/2 of the wealth passed from one generation to the next, despite that all of their money was taxed while alive. Most of history is elite looters destroying economies and buying up hard assets with fiat reserve credit. What your family likely had was hard assets.
That -is- sound advice.
I’ve always thought, if I ever won the lottery, I’d do this in this order:
1: Pay off all family debts (we don’t have anything too large) and get all our family properties’ paperwork in my name (I inherited our house, but we can’t afford to do the paperwork);
2: Pay off my siblings’ debts (mortgages, medical bills, etc.);
3: Put some cash in the bank in scholarships for my nieces and nephews so they have money to go to college;
4: Fix my house
5: Create a “work” checking account where I could put spending money to be used for my usual job, and put all earnings in there, as well;
5: Put everything that’s left in a checking account;
6: Create a debit account and have like one grand deposited every week, and live off that money.
In theory the interest from the checking account would keep the debit account afloat. Of course I don’t know how much I’d have to give to the government, so… eh, it’s just a dream.
What to do if you’re unlucky enough to win the lottery.
That was disturbing, but helpful in terms of some of my more cynical characters’ perspectives.
See also “The Buck Passes Flynn” by Gregory MacDonald (which, like all of his Fletch/Flynn books, I highly recommend) for a similar situation.
I live in Mexico, so it doesn’t really make much of a difference to me. My suicide / homicide / kidnapping probabilities are already near 100%. :p
Also: I’m already aware of all the greedy family members I have. They basically told us to go to hell when my father died, and have no reason to talk to us anymore. So if they come’a callin’ I can just go’a hangin’. Er, up the phone.
I do have some extended family that needs the help. But they’d be the only ones.
Why a checking account and a debit account? Many checking accounts give no interest, and those that do give less interest than high yield savings accounts. Or even normal savings accounts.
Or a trust.
Am I the only one who gets an uncomfortable “Hulk porn” vibe from the title of this comic?
Rule 34….
While we never got personal financial planners, Aurelius’ advice to Sydney is nearly identical to the spiel we got at the mandatory “Financial Preparedness” classes that we periodically had to sit through when I was in the Army. While it ain’t superhero money, an E-1’s pay _seems_ like a lot to a kid just out of high school who doesn’t have to worry about rent, food, or utilities. I’m willing to bet that some of Halo’s teammates (Cough) (Heatwave!)(Cough) are already falling into the same traps so many young grunts do…
No love for Argo? Seriously? Sydney forgot about Argo?
And no Swiftwind? Sydney forgetting about the horses of Xena and She-Ra seems very very… un-Sydnian.
I’m amazed no-one mentioned ShadowFax, Gandalf’s horse.
or Pokey, (Gumby’s)
(oops, except Dave. Dave mentioned Shadowfax)
Maybe there wasn’t enough space for all the names? Ever thought of that?
What’s plausible to me is that the he’s been hearing Arianna plan the news releases and press conference for months, so it’s not news to him. He might even be stuck in the loop of Arianna’s merchandising plans and be thoroughly sick of it.
So he might not have been glued to the TV nearly as hard as 95% of the population.
The restaurant fight was news, but again he has better sources of information.
If you have more money than you have debt, I think you’re dumb if you don’t soon have less money and no debt. Keep 6 months of expenses, and use ALL the rest to pay off debt. Anything you owe money on that makes money will make more if you don’t owe the money!
That includes the house. If you have a $70 K house loan and $100 K in cash, you should soon have $30 K in cash and a paid-for house. If this makes you uncomfortable, you should have no trouble getting a mortgage later…
This kinda depends. Mortgage interest rates can be really, really low if you got them at a good time with good credit. This means it can be a good idea to invest the money you would have spent on paying off the mortgage on something that will yield at a higher rate (or comparable rate) to your mortgage payments. Of course, you need to be pretty sure that investment is really stable, so you need to diversify, but you’ll net out ahead.
This only works if you have a consistent frequent paycheque. It is excellent advice if you indeed have a job that has consistent/frequent income on a regular schedule once a week, once every two weeks, or even once a month.
It does not work for those of us in careers where our income fluctuates wildly from “nothing coming in at all this month” to “several thousand this month” to “a mere pittance this month”…which is what artists and authors (like myself) go through. Or as I told a doctor I was chatting with, “You (the doctor) probably know at the start of the year to within a couple thousand dollars what your yearly income will be. I know to within a couple TENS of thousands of dollars.” (My income fluctuates so much, I literally don’t know if I’ll be able to afford my house payments next year–buy my books!!)
Hehe, I got seven out of ten of the horse reference names there. Could not place Roach or Ruin and not sure if Esquire might just be there for the extra fancy.
Roach is Geralt’s horse from The Witcher, Ruin is War’s horse, and Esquire is just the funny thing you add to the end of pets’ names.
So, Bill S Preston, Esquire was a hamster? o_O
I thought at first he was going for an acronym….
The more I read, the more I want to be there but can’t! Damn you writer and your amazing writing! *shaking my fist*
why can you be here? i got plain tickets last week. besides it over rated my tental car got blown up twise in a week.
talking about the world there, not place where it’s set in
“My rental car got blown up twice last week.” I can’t stop laughing!
you must be ADHD to o-o it just perfect.
Love the paladin armor on both horse and Sydney.
Mutual funds traditionally perform worse than the market. The best fund to invest in is an index fund. This is relatively well established (Google for the performance of any fund over the long term vs. index). Financial planners sometimes like to give you a more complex approach when sometimes the simplest is best.
Generally for long term investment, a significant property holding is a wise investment. If you move beyond residential property you can look to commercial property. Then you invest money you can afford to lose into businesses and venture capital.
I don’t think I’d ever heard of index funds before this comic going up. I should probably make a note to change it so his advice doesn’t bug people who actually know what they’re doing.
Mutual funds often pay a commission to the financial advisor who hooks you up with them. This called a mutual fund load. So Mr. Shrapnel makes money from getting people to buy into a mutual fund. Of course he will recommend mutual funds. Index funds are generally no-load funds, so he won’t make as much money if you go that way. Also, index funds are managed by a computer program, not a financial manager, so their fees are way less, which is part of the reason that mutual funds do not perform as well as index funds.
If you can set aside the time and keep the interest, you can beat the broad market index funds by investing in individual stocks yourself, buying low and selling high. You have to discipline yourself to do the math (do not act emotionally) and keep on top of things on a week-by-week basis. To quote Jim Cramer, “Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.” You can make money as prices go up; you can make money as the prices go down, but hold on to something too long and you are toast.
The vast majority of people who attempt to invest in individual stocks go broke.
The entire point of an efficient market is that things are priced at what they’re worth because if they aren’t people will buy / sell until they are. Yes, in theory you can capture the misplaced value as the price of a stock adjusts, but you’re competing against people who do this for a living, have better information access than you do, and have computer programs explicitly set up to make the process as fast and efficient as possible. Unless you’re very lucky, they’re going to beat you to the value and you’re going to end up losing money by mistiming your buy / sells.
Don’t change this–it’s not unusual for an investment adviser to suggest mutual funds, as a) people know what a mutual fund is, and b) mutual funds don’t have any kind of risky reputation. If you want somebody who doesn’t know spit about the markets to invest wisely without having to think about it, mutual funds are a very good thing. If your client is somebody who takes an interest in the markets, and/or knows something about the stock market from elsewhere, then you should probably tell them to invest in index funds, or in particular stocks that they like. For really well-informed investors–the ones who know the market, but just don’t have the time to handle things–you can make some serious money from derivatives, short selling, etc, but your client had better understand that there is a significant amount of risk when you do this.
Mutual funds are, honestly, probably the best way to handle investments for most kids who are just seeing their paychecks for the first time. They are, generally, a fairly safe investment, and they are one of the few investments that you can buy and hold for a long time without losing money to opportunity costs. Index funds require more attention, and a bit more knowledge about the markets–if he thought Sydney knew more about the markets, he would probably suggest that she go with them instead. If she has particular companies that she likes to keep track of (I have my own index of companies to track, as I believe that they give a better snapshot of the economy than the common indices do), than he will probably try to talk to her to find out why she follows them, and suggest alternatives that she can follow that may be more sensitive to the market conditions that she feels are significant.
For instance, I like to keep track of defense contractors, energy companies, mining companies, and gaming companies, on the theory that the fundamental basis of any economy is the combination of security, energy, raw materials, and time. When all four of these groups start to go up, that’s a great sign. If only one is going up, that could potentially be a very bad sign, and be a signal that I need to start dumping shares in particular sectors. Likely, this isn’t the type that he’s used to dealing with, but it is the type he hopes for. Sydney, however, is not something that he is used to dealing with–most business owners, as I have said elsewhere, already know what they want to do with their money, and will direct it as necessary. What Sydney needs isn’t an investment advisor, but a business mentor, possibly somebody like the guys on Shark Tank, for instance–somebody who knows the traps she can fall into as a business owner, but isn’t going to try to take the business from her and Joel.
Actually…that’s a pretty cool idea, now that I think about it. Have her appear on your world’s equivalent of Shark Tank–possibly with that guy Harem is spying for as one of the sharks–to push her store and, essentially, ask for advice on how to handle this sudden influx of cash and, hopefully, business. Most of the sharks would be able to see her potential, both as an owner, and as a brand, immediately, and the fact that she simply cannot be there all the time would be a major factor in explaining why, with all this cash, she’s asking for one of the sharks to invest (they will ask for an inordinately large ownership percentage, by the way, simply because their time is almost as valuable as Sydney’s, if not more so, and they need to make up for the lost time).
Let’s visit an expert. David Swensen, the Chief Investment Officer at Yale has achieved an annual return of 11.8% (a very good return). Look at his wikipedia page. See what he says about mutual funds. 96% of mutual funds lose money.
Yes, lots of financial advisors recommend mutual funds – it’s easy, and they get a good commission. But a _good_ advisor would never recommend one. All the data shows that an index fund is far better.
You don’t need market literacy to invest in an index fund. It’s the same as a mutual fund, but without the fees and human guessing.
As for trading, I agree with David Storrs – you can trade the market, but it’s high risk and unless you have great insight into a niche, you’re likely to lose against those with better information. eToro may be a counter-point but I would regard any buy/sell activity as higher risk than buying index funds (or buying a good sound residential house within 20 minutes drive of CBD). Good thing about property is you can enhance it (extend, subdivide, etc.). But at this point, we’re expecting Sidney to be a passive investor, and even the simplest properties introduce tenant and property management hassles, so an index fund is a nice clear place to start.
DaveB – you can help educate the world if you recommend an index fund (from funds that are member-owned) than a mutual fund (from brokers who make profits) :-)
Slow zoom on the face + slow dilatation of pupil = slow zoning out… love it.
Lots of people have been dreaming about what they’d do if they “won the lottery” like Sidney did, but there are a few bits of advice that the common man should have.
1: Payday loans are a scam. They are not just a scam, but a scam that preys on the financially vulnerable and locks them into a loop of debt. Don’t use payday loan places. Take a personal loan from a friend, family member, hated enemy, anything and everything before you even consider going to a payday loan place. I cannot emphasize that enough.
2: Try not to keep debt, and if you have to live in debt (student loans, mortgage, what have you) then make sure you pay it off as quickly as possible. The longer it takes to pay off, the more interest acrues, and the more you’ll pay once it’s all said and done. Don’t give free money away to people you don’t want to give free money to.
2b: When paying something off in increments, always make sure you pay off enough that you’re chipping away at the principal (the amount actually borrowed) and not just the interest. Interest will accumulate literally forever if the principal is still there.
3: Only use a credit card for things which you need a credit card for. Use the credit card at least once or twice a month, then immediately pay it off. I’m not saying immediately figuratively, I mean that literally. With online banking there is no excuse. The regular activity on your card and prompt payment will result in a healthy credit rating.
3b: A healthy credit rating is important because it allows you to borrow (say a car loan or mortgage) at a better rate than someone with a bad credit rating.
4: If you are ever going to have a loan for something big then take a calculator and pad of paper to the meeting with whomever is giving you the loan. When they tell you the rate you also need to ask what the “compounding period” is (non-compound interest is rare). This is important because it tells you when the interest starts accruing, and when it’s added to the principal. Even if two loans have the same interest rate on paper the amount you’ll pay at the end will differ if they have different compounding periods. Short = BAD. Long = GOOD
4b: The formula to find out is A = P (1+r/n) to the power of nt
A = The total amount paid
P = The principal (amount borrowed)
r = annual rate of interest as a decimal (4% is 0.04)
n = number of times the interest is compounded per year (this is the sneaky compounding period)
t = the Total number of years the amount is borrowed for (can be a fraction)
5: Investing. If you’ve got more than 1000 bucks in the bank on a regular basis you can probably afford to invest some of it. Leaving it sitting in your chequing account or stuffing it under a mattress actually costs you money if you don’t actually need to use it. Why? Because the rate of inflation is gradually making that 1000 bucks worth less as time goes by.
5b: Depending on the type of investment, that same formula I showed before can help you find out what your investment will be worth at the end of the investment period, although whomever is helping you with the investment should show you the full info before you sign on the dotted line. The safer the investment, the easier it is to use this formula and be assured the actual results will match what you’ve calculated.
Absolutely true! Also, even if you have decided to invest your money, try to invest it into something that you know something about. Following the latest hot stock tips or trends is a very good way to lose money very quickly. So if you know something about, say, airlines (because you work for one, for instance), then focusing your investments in that area will likely be more profitable than investing in, say, Amazon, because everybody is investing in Amazon, and it’s sure to be a great thing. This helps you avoid any sudden market corrections, which often leave you feeling like you’ve lost your shirt to somebody being stupid.
This is a point. You feel like you’ve lost your shirt. Say you’ve got money in stocks, you’re out of touch and the market “corrects” itself (takes a dive). Don’t panic! Also, DON”T SELL OUT! Say your stocks dropped 20%. OUCH, you say. Gotta get rid of it you say. But what if that stock has been a steady riser until now? Sit on it. You haven’t actually lost a nickel until you sell! In fact, at the bottom of a market correction is the best time to buy. You won’t ever get as cheap a price again. Then sit back and watch your money come running back to you. With friends.
Whenever I save $1,000, I will put it into a CD. Why?
Not just to accumulate interest (which admittedly only breaks even with inflation most years), but I use them for “secured loans” which gives me a sweetheart deal on interest rates. (my mother allowed me to use her CDs as collateral to pay off my student loans. 2.7% interest rate, I was out of debt by the time I was 30, it would have been 28 but I was out of work for a year and could only pay off the interest. Thank God they let me live at home.)
Currently, I have used my personal CDs to back up part of my new home I bought. With my Credit Score, I am paying well under 5% on the main loan, and less than 3% on the smaller loan.
Her eyes are dilating… I’m thinking that’s a bad thing. That’s a bad thing, right?
It’s not as bad now as it would be if she was driving… :P
…It’s just her zoning out & daydreaming. I’ve seen Daniel the Human do it every now & again, when he’s thinking up new monstrosities he could make. Just as long as he doesn’t try to add me to any of them-Oh scrap, he’s doing it now, & looking at me! Gotta run!!
So, I just had to make my first time commenting on this comic, that I have been keeping up with for years, to ask 1 question.
Sydney would name her horse Artax Ixion Roach Epona Ruin Shadowfax Sleipnir Sparkle Ed, Esquire, which for the most part would be fine, but, how would Sydney know the name Roach? I get that’s it’s just a word that she could have picked at random, but we all know she didn’t.
The comic started in 2010, and since then barely a handful of days has passed in story, so how does Sydney know the name of the horse that Geralt rides in the 2015 released Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?
Well the real answer is “comic time” and the other real answer is that The Witcher is based on novels dating from 1986, though I don’t know if/when Roach shows up in those novels. It’s probable that Sydney read the novels when it became clear she wanted to play the first game.
I’ll accept “comic time” as the answer, please and thank you.
Technically, you don’t know when the ‘beginning’ year is when this started.
Actually, yes we do, or at least a rough estimate based on the warranty sticker on her car
Do not put your fingers vertically to hold food out to a horse. Hold it underneath or from the sides. You risk losing finger tips when the horse bites down the way Sydney is holding the apple.
Good thing it’s only a daydream then, huh? Otherwise we might have ended up finding out if 1 unknown orb is regeneration/healing…
Mr Ed is my father. Call me Artax Ixion Roach Epona Ruin Shadowfax Sleipnir Sparkle.
We are going to find out that the brown orb actually grants Sydney rudimentary Animal Telepathy, aren’t we, because it is now for certain she is going to try and buy a horse.
I’ve only had two up close experiences with horses and they were both nice and friendly and positive.
The first was when our parents got my sister and me some riding lessons from a local place. All we actually did was go round and round this circular corral, but it was still very cool. I recall that I kept trying to steer my horse to keep it from stepping in any of the droppings – as if it needed me to tell it where not to put it’s feet. I don’t recall why, but we only had a couple of lessons before we stopped going.
Then, when I was a teenager, I worked for the city two summers cutting grass. One of the places where I did my cutting was right next door to this big fenced in field that had a couple of horses grazing in it. As I was working close to the wooden fence, one of the horses casually strolled over to check me out. I stopped my weed-eater so I wouldn’t accidentally send anything flying at it. With this horse sticking it’s head over the fence, I yanked up a handful of grass from the ground and held it out and the horse gobbled it right down.
How tame and friendly was that!? I mean this critter just came right up to some stranger it had never seen before, not to mention the fact that I was holding a noisy and exhaust spewing gas powered weed-eater at the time. On the other hand, I do not deny that the clump of grass I got for it was good and long so that my hand would be as far from it’s teeth as possible, and that I did not try to pet it for fear of it snapping at me.
This guy has the patience of a saint, my god…
My key advice would be: assume that at some point you’re going to have all your accounts frozen and/or tracked and make sure you have a boatload of money you can access anyway while you clear your name.
Or…. assume that you MIGHT have an emergency on a weekend (when banks are closed) or during a storm/blackout that renders ATM’s worthless. Always good to have an emergency backup supply of cash. Just don’t ever spend it unless its an actual emergency. Wrap the cash up in duct tape or other breakable container so you don’t dip into it for ice cream trucks or something.
For normal people sure, but for a superhero there’s a greater chance of the fugitive thing.
It’s been awhile since we saw Maxima. Think they managed to find a way around her reflectivity?
Since my guesses about what’s going to happen next are invariably wrong and it won’t spoil any upcoming story lines, I’ll go ahead and give you all my idea about what’s going to happen to her. I think that the next time we see her will be on her return to HQ from the studio and that she’ll seem a little dazed and dreamy and not quite there. The folks who meet her on her return are going to notice how unfocused she is and will comment on how Hiro was the same way after his visit to that studio.
Later, we will learn that the photographer has some kind of power to cloud people’s mind and so she can convince her models that it’s a good idea to let her take what I’ll call glamour photos. Maxima and Hiro do not see anything wrong with having posed for such shots as they are convinced that it was their idea, but gradually sort out what really happened.
The photographers reason for doing this? Maybe she just wants to make money and these photos will certainly do that. On the other hand, maybe she intends blackmail! “Don’t stop me from stealing all the gold out of Fort Knox,” for example, “or I’ll publish these pictures!”
Anybody else care to share their ideas?
Any attempt at blackmailing Max would NOT end well. For the would-be blackmailer. Comes to that, it wouldn’t even START well.
I expect you’re right, but if my evil photographer even managed to get our two heroes to sign permission slips or whatever, they might not legally be able to stop the publishing of the photos. I doubt there is a law on the books yet that contracts signed because of brainwashing don’t count. Still, Maxima would surely find a creative way to both stop publication and to punish the photographer.
Max: “Well, you see General, it was like this. I was shooting a mid-level phuckyu, err, I mean photon blast at this fleeing perpetrator, and…well…missed, and it went right into the photo studio. It was an accident. I swear!”
General: “Right. Just like that time when you ‘accidentally’ blew up that mosque . . .”
Max: “EXACTLY! See, I knew you’d understand!”
Yes, being brainwashed DOES work to have a contract get nullified. It’s categorized as “agreement under coercion.” A contract can’t be legally upheld if any of the signatories was put under duress or coercion.
Okay, but she would still need to be able to convince a judge and jury that it happened. With no eye witnesses since Max and the photographer were the only ones in the room and the victims believing that they wanted to do it at first, it would be one womans word against anothers. How could Max and Hiro possibly prove that they were brainwashed and not just a couple of rich celebrity types who had really just changed their minds?
Well I think the solution is simply a camera filter, polarization filter I believe it is called, in terms of the thing with Maxima being shiny.
I just watched Rick & Morty and now I’m imagining Aurelius speaking with Keith David’s voice
Dave, you and the internet are scary together.
Read comic, while watching twitch and they had that jingle “Pink fluffy unicorn” going when got followers.
Now I cannot get the mental picture out of my mind how Sydney with her current state of mind would react to that.
Sydney really should invest a good share of her checks. I would say, in the 20% range, at least.
I know, that sounds like a lot but lets face “reality” (even though Dave would never do this in the story). She does not know how long her career might last. Composite-Superman (look it up, hilarious) lost his powers after a short time. In a more real explanation, sports players do not know how long their careers will last. 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? Who knows!
Likewise, she could get wounded in the line of duty, or something simple like the orbs leave her. She could be forced into retirement, without the ability to go into the private sector.
Not long ago, [html=https://www.businessinsider.com/david-harrison-mcdonalds-indiana-pacers-2015-3]David Harrison of the Indiana Pacers[/html] had to go work at McDonald’s because of this type of situation. That is what happens when you go through a lot of money really fast without planning for the future.
PS: No edit button, and I am bad at tag scripts
https://www.businessinsider.com/david-harrison-mcdonalds-indiana-pacers-2015-3
As a complete and utter horse nut (I currently have 6 and own a fodder/saddlery store) this page makes me very happy <3 Very purdy horse (even if Sydney is at serious risk of no longer being able to count to 10 hehehe :P )
One of Australia's Olympic medallists is missing a finger tip thanks to an overly enthusiastic horse, they are a very powerful animal and accidents can happen even if you know what you're doing!!!
One of our orphan calves tried to steal some grain from one of my thoroughbreds once, he picked it up by the scruff of the neck and did the poor calf fly through the air!
Hahaha, I forgot I had an avatar for this email. The horse in my pic will attack pigeons if they try and steal his feed. I’ve found a couple of flat ones in his stable over the years that didn’t fly away quick enough!
LOL. Her imagination morphed financial adviser guy into a horse.
While it’s a pretty safe bet that Sydney’s not the type to do so, some people would hear the suggestion about refreshing their wardrobe, and take it as permission to go out and buy all the designer clothing they could get their hands on. And even non-designer clothing can get pricey, depending on what it is you’re buying, and from where.
Don’t listen to him, Sydney.
Passive Income is the root of all evil.