Advice From God

Dear God,

For years, the so-called experts have been telling us that we should think in terms of long term investment. Just invest your money and keep it in one place, managed by financial advisors, they told us, and in the long run, everything will turn out fine.

Well, I’ve been investing for forty years, keeping my money put, waiting for that long term pay off. Now, 80 percent of my money is gone.

So, what do you say, God? Is investing with a long term focus still a good idea?

- Ira

Ira,

Look at it this way. Let’s say that all that you own has been turned into a big pile of shit. Well, in a few years, that shit could be absorbed by trees, if you spread it in a forest. Then, over the course of perhaps ten million years, the trees that grew in that forest might be sucked underground by continental drift, and then with the great pressure of the earth, be turned into highly condensed carbon crystals – diamonds.

It’s all just a matter of time – thinking in the long term. So, yes, long term investment pays off, so long as it’s done over a very long term. Take ten million years, and you can turn your money into real wealth. In the human time scale, though? No, long term investment isn’t an effective strategy then.

- God