2004-03-17 8:09 a.m.
Financial Wisdom from the Carpool Lane
When most people seek financial advice, they look at a Morningstar report or read the Motley Fool or call up a banker or broker. Me, I like to take the casual carpool instead. After all, why pay for advice when the stranger who's driving you to work and who's trying to impress the guy on the other end of his surgically-implanted cell phone will give it up for free?
For those of you who aren't in an area served by the Transportation Adventure, here's "where the money is":
- In the bar area of a restaurant. The driver was careful to namedrop
an example, run by "a friend of mine."
- Importing Tiger Balm,
because "everybody uses Tiger Balm."
- Buying up land outside of Saigon, because "the city is expanding
outward" and the impoverished farmers you're ripping off "don't know
any better."
I also found out what industry this guy works in (the restaurant business), how many kids he has (one), and how much money he makes (quite a bit less than I do, which calls into question whether he really knows "where the money is"). He also inadvertently treated me and the other passenger, a middle-aged woman of Japanese descent, to an annoying, forced laugh ("hah hah hah hah hah, you're funny, bro") and several generalizations about people from various Asian countries. And he asked his caller no fewer than three times, "so, where are you right now?", vital information for anyone making useless cell phone conversation.
If you're hesitant to start casual carpooling in your area, you needn't worry about being robbed or raped. It's much, much more likely you'll be annoyed to death instead.