Nothing! Zip! Nada! That’s whats wrong with being unsophisticated.

Americans are so stuck up on sophistication. They dislike the Europeans for oozing it :) and stick their noses up at us Canadians for not having it (thank goodness).

In the upside down world of ‘HIGH (as in you must be stoned to think returns are linear) Finance’, you need to be ‘sophisticated’ to invest in hedge funds for the right to worry about ‘Return OF Capital’ instead of ‘Return ON Capital’. It’s so upside down, that it is almost impossible to be sympathetic to the yutz’s chasing complicated hedge fund strategies and big returns.

Here’s a simple and multi billion dollar tax for a new leadership to deploy…The Putz Tax:

If you are rich enough to invest in hedge fund managers that end up stealing your money or underperform, you should have to match the losses or underperformance in extra tax.

If your hedge fund manager is averaging 30 plus percent a year for three years straight, he/she’s not that smart and you are not that smart and you should have to pay extra tax before you give it all up and the manager blows up himself and you both get loss carryforwards. In the rare case that your manager is just a dumb ass trend follower like me, the extra tax is still fine because it will be made up over time anyway.

As I watch American institutions blow themselves up, I get sickened by all the talk of ‘sophistication’. Run from it and focus on simple strategies. When you make enough money to start getting pitched ‘sophisticated’ strategies to help ‘diversify’ your hard earned money, simplify it further.

Sophistication does not mean smart and unsophisticated does not mean stupid!