Total Return Swap

“Mr. Salem periodically asks trustees and investment officers … to imagine they can swap all their assets in exchange for a contract that guarantees them a risk-free return for the next 50 years, while also satisfying their current spending needs. Then he asks them what minimal rate of return, after inflation and all fees, they would accept in such a swap. In Mr. Salem’s latest survey, the average response was 7.4%. One-sixth of his participants refused to swap for any return lower than 10%. The first time Mr. Salem surveyed his group, in the fall of 2007, one person wanted 22%, a return that, over 50 years, would turn $100,000 into $2.1 billion”  — wsj

Meanwhile my “reward checking account” pays 4.1%.  Frustratingly I don’t see how to get my retirement money into one.

In other news: following the purchase of tax software from Amazon the question was asked, “Where is the key for filing my federal taxes?”   The reply make perfect sense:  Look in “Your Account”, “Digital Content”, section – “Your Games and Software Library”   I think my insight that the right metaphor for web sites is now massively multi-player games maybe spreading to the rest of society.   Or, maybe it was the other way around?  How much of an insight is it to announce: “We are all social now?”

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