Mutual fund fees cut your life savings in half!

Virtually all mutual funds (aksjefond in Norwegian), charge their customer some percentage of their total account balance at the end of each year. This annual fee is most likely in the 2 – 3% range. This may not sound much, but over the years, it does add up: 0.98^40 = 0.45 0.97^40 = 0.30 What… Continue reading »

A Dysfunctional Banking System

As the debt-crisis reached its preliminary climax in the fall of 2008, we were promised the collapse of society if the banks were not rescued with public funds. Maybe that’s true, but now is the time to think about building a better banking and money infrastructure. My personal experience with banks was increased somewhat over… Continue reading »

My First CO2 Quota Purchase

I’ve just purchased 5.89 contracts on the European CO2 emissions market, worth roughly $150. They are now effectively deleted from the market. These are meant to offset two round-trip flights from Toronto to Oslo. An extra multiplier was applied to the raw quantities of CO2, because the emissions from flights happen at high altitude and… Continue reading »

The Commodities Gadget

And here is the Google Gadgets version of the Commodities Widget. It supports exactly the same chains of commodities as the mac version: Energy: Crude oil, natural gas, heating oil and gasoline Softs: Sugar, coffee, cocoa and cotton Grains: Corn, soybeans and wheat Metals: Gold, silver and copper Currencies: US dollar index, Euro, British Pound,… Continue reading »

The Commodities Widget

The Commodities Widget

I know it’s been a while, but the sequel to the broken Oil Price Widget is now here. The new widget not only shows the oil price, it shows a set of other futures, currencies and indices as well. I named it the Commodities Widget, even though some of the things it shows are not… Continue reading »