9 ms·

The Dead Man Fund

189 points by chollida1 9y ago

hayksaakian 9y ago
What amazes me is how the fund continued to exist for so long despite a track record of failure.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Is there no oversight for mutual funds in the USA one of the reasons why I prefer IT (Investment trusts) where the board acts in the interests of the share holders and not the managers.
pnutjam 9y ago
This should be required reading for high school economics.
Simulacra 9y ago
Very interesting article. One tangent note: The author appears to have committed a felony by opening someone else's mail. Even if they're dead. A random quirk of the law.
- astura 9y ago
  I'll admit I only skimmed TFA but it doesn't look like we have enough information to conclude that. It's illegal to steal mail from a box that's not yours, or from the post office, or a mail carrier. It's entirely possible to accidentally open someone else's mail - many of us just open whatever's in the box, especially homeowners. That's not illegal, it was in your box and it was unintentional and done without malice. What's illegal is if you then intentionally prevent that mail from being delivered, IE, throw it away. So if you scrawl "return to sender" on it and put it back in the box then you're perfectly legal. There's no indication that the author didn't do that. Edit: that's what I get for skimming, they didn't do that, but are trying to track down the heirs. Furthermore, you are certainly allowed to open the mail of the deceased if you are the next of kin. In fact, you can put in a request to get their mail forwarded to you with the post office. There's other cases where it's entirely legal to open someone else's mail, such as mail addressed to your minor child.
  - sleepychu 9y ago
    >There seemed no point in returning Heilman’s check to Ameritor, which was out of business, so instead I tried to track her down. >I still have the check from Ameritor (signed by Carole Kinney’s husband Jerome), and I’d love to pass it along to Heilman’s survivors Doesn't seem like the author returned it to the sender.
    - astura 9y ago
      Return to sender is all you're legally required to do. If you know returning to sender will go into the void so you're making a legitimate effort to track down the legitimate owner instead then I wouldn't say you're intentionally interfering with that person's mail delivery, quite the opposite, which is what is illegal. It's like when my neighbors mail ends up in my box and just drop it in their box instead of returning it.
    - Overtonwindow 9y ago
      And the author was not next of kin.. The letter has obviously been opened. How is unknown but then by not returning to the postal service, and instead trying to track them down himself, I think is the crime. Has he simply left it unopened and attempted to locate this wouldn't be an issue. The violation in law arises when the envelope is opened.
- Overtonwindow 9y ago
  Technically. 18 U.S.C. § 1701 Says if you accidentally open it it's not a crime, but then not notifying the post office and returning it to them is when it becomes a crime. By a) opening the letter (apparently deliberately as he doesn't say accidentally) and then b) NOT returning it to the postal service, the author has committed a crime.
  - goialoq 9y ago
    It's a crime to not go out of way to do someone else's job for them? I see nothing about that here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1701 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1701 "Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both." Reading/trashing mail in my box isn't obstructing or retarding anything in passage or conveyance.
- zrail 9y ago
  It is 100% legal to open any first class or lower mail with your street address on it that the USPS puts in your mail box. Source: asked my attorney because for the past three years running we've received the previous owner's W2 in the mail. First year I called the company and sent it back. We just shred it all now.
- mikestew 9y ago
  I'm sure the U. S. Postal Inspectors will get right on that. Perhaps they make it an episode of their television show: https://www.21cpw.com/usps-the-inspectors-postal-themed-tv-drama-to-debut-this-fall/ https://www.21cpw.com/usps-the-inspectors-postal-themed-tv-d...
JackFr 9y ago
1. Market the heck out of your fund to get it real big. 2. Run it straight for a few years, but then really hammer the fund with crazy bad expenses (and possible self dealing -- but keep it legal) Do so poorly that any account with a pulse will withdraw all their funds. 3. What's left over is free money for you draw down as 'expenses' for as long as it lasts.
- wnissen 9y ago
  That's a remarkably accurate description of events. It's the "Springtime for Hitler" of funds. Because the fund is so bad there is no one left to hold you to account. The incredible thing is that they could have kept it going indefinitely if they hadn't been so greedy. Just stick all the money in a basket of stocks to replicate an index fund, set annual "expenses" at right around replacement rate (3-4%), and go live in St. Barts.
  - JackFr 9y ago
    > It's the "Springtime for Hitler" of funds. This
  - eru 9y ago
    Not only greedy, but also incompetent.
- goialoq 9y ago
  your example : mutual funds :: AOL : ISPs
Mitchhhs 9y ago
This is quite sad. One thing i've been shocked by over the years is how often even well educated, highly intelligent individuals have a very poor education in personal finance and make terrible decisions. Theres just so much noise out there and its still crazy how much of the investment management industry exists despite showing negative value. If I had to sum up personal finance advice for the average person in a few bullets it would be this. 1. Invest in a well diversified portfolio that pays very low fees (vanguard funds for instance) 2. Do not try to time the market 3. Save as much as you can as early as you can - maximize your 401k/ROTH contributions 4. Never carry a balance on your credit card from month to month And yet so much goes wrong...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Finance isn't rigorous or fundamental in the way that somethings like math, physics, chemistry, etc are. In that way, it's a lot less interesting to many highly intelligent people, because it is after all, just bullshit which happens to be capable of making you rich in a narrow point in time. In another time and place, there would be nothing valuable or true about most of economics, finance, and the like. Meanwhile the hyperfine transitions of Hydrogen are, and will always be what they are, and be just as useful and fundamental in a thousand years (hopefully). So, unless the highly intelligent, well educated person has a particular interest in finance, it's probably going to appear to be the crooked, black magic shitstorm it really is.
  - alexanderstears 9y ago
    It's not accurate to characterize finance as simply something that happens to be capable of making you rich in a narrow point in time. More than you know, I'm not a cheerleader of modern finance but it is the reason that most of the capital in the world exists and it's important for people to be aware of it as a fundamental part of our society. People ignore it at their own risk. You're right that the problems of finance aren't fundamental to the natural world, and they're not as elegant as the problems in mathematics and the mathematical sciences. However, there is some basic amount of financial knowledge that people should have as a basis of functioning in the world. And I think many intelligent people should be interested in establishing that knowledge base because it can enrich their life. What's fortunate is that the amount of knowledge required to simply understand one's degrees of freedom and the outcomes is pretty basic. Even if you don't find it interesting, you should be able to slog through it in less than a day. And that's a good thing because it would take a lot longer than a day to get to the state of the art in finance but that's not critical to understanding why it's unfavorable to use a credit card to buy a car.
bhhaskin 9y ago
Thanks for this. It's a nice breath of fresh air from the usual marketing pieces.
madengr 9y ago
I have been reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The premise seems to be that these actively managed funds, on average, don’t do any better than the market index. So just put your money in an index fund and avoid all the fees from the so called experts.
- arielweisberg 9y ago
  It's a good book and one of my favorites, but I prefer "The Four Pillars of Investing" by William Bernstein. [1] Even the recommendations there are more complicated than I prefer. Vanguard has some wrapper funds (Life Strategy, Target Retirement) you can pick from that mean even more simplicity and less room for error. Tax efficiency is the only reason I would get more involved. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio/dp/0071385290/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1510595025&sr=8-2&keywords=four+pillars+of+investing&dpID=5106QPDYQFL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portf...
dmix 9y ago
> The rate of loss only accelerated, and the recession of 2008 dealt this frail fund a killing blow. Recessions aren't all bad. They have a cleaning effect, sweeping up the cruft and inefficient operations, while exposing the outright frauds in the process. It's amazing the fund lasted as long as they did... Interesting read regardless, too bad it wasn't longer as the usual articles typically are on this site.
- brandnewlow 9y ago
  Also gives employers air cover to let go of the non-workers hiding on the payroll.
  - snotrockets 9y ago
    idk, last recession, most financial management kept to their chairs: it was the low ranking employees that got the boot.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  >Recessions aren't all bad. They have a cleaning effect, sweeping up the cruft and inefficient operations, while exposing the outright frauds in the process. Feels a bit too generous. Like saying a fire that destroyed your house was beneficial because it dealt with all those pesky fire hazards you hadn't been aware of/addressed yet. The best you can say is that at least it prevented anyone else from moving in unawares and dying in the fire. But it's still a total loss for anyone who already lived there.
bearbearbear 9y ago
> An envelope had landed in our mailbox containing a check in the amount of $10.32 made out to one Anna Mae Heilman. The whole debacle of solving this mystery could've been avoided by not stealing mail from someone you don't know and instead marking it return to sender.

The Dead Man Fund

189 points by chollida1 9y ago

hayksaakian 9y ago

What amazes me is how the fund continued to exist for so long despite a track record of failure.

walshemj 9y ago
Is there no oversight for mutual funds in the USA one of the reasons why I prefer IT (Investment trusts) where the board acts in the interests of the share holders and not the managers.

pnutjam 9y ago

This should be required reading for high school economics.

Simulacra 9y ago

Very interesting article. One tangent note: The author appears to have committed a felony by opening someone else's mail. Even if they're dead. A random quirk of the law.

astura 9y ago
I'll admit I only skimmed TFA but it doesn't look like we have enough information to conclude that. It's illegal to steal mail from a box that's not yours, or from the post office, or a mail carrier. It's entirely possible to accidentally open someone else's mail - many of us just open whatever's in the box, especially homeowners. That's not illegal, it was in your box and it was unintentional and done without malice. What's illegal is if you then intentionally prevent that mail from being delivered, IE, throw it away. So if you scrawl "return to sender" on it and put it back in the box then you're perfectly legal. There's no indication that the author didn't do that. Edit: that's what I get for skimming, they didn't do that, but are trying to track down the heirs. Furthermore, you are certainly allowed to open the mail of the deceased if you are the next of kin. In fact, you can put in a request to get their mail forwarded to you with the post office. There's other cases where it's entirely legal to open someone else's mail, such as mail addressed to your minor child.
- sleepychu 9y ago
  >There seemed no point in returning Heilman’s check to Ameritor, which was out of business, so instead I tried to track her down. >I still have the check from Ameritor (signed by Carole Kinney’s husband Jerome), and I’d love to pass it along to Heilman’s survivors Doesn't seem like the author returned it to the sender.
  - astura 9y ago
    Return to sender is all you're legally required to do. If you know returning to sender will go into the void so you're making a legitimate effort to track down the legitimate owner instead then I wouldn't say you're intentionally interfering with that person's mail delivery, quite the opposite, which is what is illegal. It's like when my neighbors mail ends up in my box and just drop it in their box instead of returning it.
  - Overtonwindow 9y ago
    And the author was not next of kin.. The letter has obviously been opened. How is unknown but then by not returning to the postal service, and instead trying to track them down himself, I think is the crime. Has he simply left it unopened and attempted to locate this wouldn't be an issue. The violation in law arises when the envelope is opened.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
Technically. 18 U.S.C. § 1701 Says if you accidentally open it it's not a crime, but then not notifying the post office and returning it to them is when it becomes a crime. By a) opening the letter (apparently deliberately as he doesn't say accidentally) and then b) NOT returning it to the postal service, the author has committed a crime.
- goialoq 9y ago
  It's a crime to not go out of way to do someone else's job for them? I see nothing about that here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1701 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1701 "Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both." Reading/trashing mail in my box isn't obstructing or retarding anything in passage or conveyance.
zrail 9y ago
It is 100% legal to open any first class or lower mail with your street address on it that the USPS puts in your mail box. Source: asked my attorney because for the past three years running we've received the previous owner's W2 in the mail. First year I called the company and sent it back. We just shred it all now.
mikestew 9y ago
I'm sure the U. S. Postal Inspectors will get right on that. Perhaps they make it an episode of their television show: https://www.21cpw.com/usps-the-inspectors-postal-themed-tv-drama-to-debut-this-fall/ https://www.21cpw.com/usps-the-inspectors-postal-themed-tv-d...

JackFr 9y ago

1. Market the heck out of your fund to get it real big. 2. Run it straight for a few years, but then really hammer the fund with crazy bad expenses (and possible self dealing -- but keep it legal) Do so poorly that any account with a pulse will withdraw all their funds. 3. What's left over is free money for you draw down as 'expenses' for as long as it lasts.

wnissen 9y ago
That's a remarkably accurate description of events. It's the "Springtime for Hitler" of funds. Because the fund is so bad there is no one left to hold you to account. The incredible thing is that they could have kept it going indefinitely if they hadn't been so greedy. Just stick all the money in a basket of stocks to replicate an index fund, set annual "expenses" at right around replacement rate (3-4%), and go live in St. Barts.
- JackFr 9y ago
  > It's the "Springtime for Hitler" of funds. This
- eru 9y ago
  Not only greedy, but also incompetent.
goialoq 9y ago
your example : mutual funds :: AOL : ISPs

Mitchhhs 9y ago

This is quite sad. One thing i've been shocked by over the years is how often even well educated, highly intelligent individuals have a very poor education in personal finance and make terrible decisions. Theres just so much noise out there and its still crazy how much of the investment management industry exists despite showing negative value. If I had to sum up personal finance advice for the average person in a few bullets it would be this. 1. Invest in a well diversified portfolio that pays very low fees (vanguard funds for instance) 2. Do not try to time the market 3. Save as much as you can as early as you can - maximize your 401k/ROTH contributions 4. Never carry a balance on your credit card from month to month And yet so much goes wrong...

QAPereo 9y ago
Finance isn't rigorous or fundamental in the way that somethings like math, physics, chemistry, etc are. In that way, it's a lot less interesting to many highly intelligent people, because it is after all, just bullshit which happens to be capable of making you rich in a narrow point in time. In another time and place, there would be nothing valuable or true about most of economics, finance, and the like. Meanwhile the hyperfine transitions of Hydrogen are, and will always be what they are, and be just as useful and fundamental in a thousand years (hopefully). So, unless the highly intelligent, well educated person has a particular interest in finance, it's probably going to appear to be the crooked, black magic shitstorm it really is.
- alexanderstears 9y ago
  It's not accurate to characterize finance as simply something that happens to be capable of making you rich in a narrow point in time. More than you know, I'm not a cheerleader of modern finance but it is the reason that most of the capital in the world exists and it's important for people to be aware of it as a fundamental part of our society. People ignore it at their own risk. You're right that the problems of finance aren't fundamental to the natural world, and they're not as elegant as the problems in mathematics and the mathematical sciences. However, there is some basic amount of financial knowledge that people should have as a basis of functioning in the world. And I think many intelligent people should be interested in establishing that knowledge base because it can enrich their life. What's fortunate is that the amount of knowledge required to simply understand one's degrees of freedom and the outcomes is pretty basic. Even if you don't find it interesting, you should be able to slog through it in less than a day. And that's a good thing because it would take a lot longer than a day to get to the state of the art in finance but that's not critical to understanding why it's unfavorable to use a credit card to buy a car.

bhhaskin 9y ago

Thanks for this. It's a nice breath of fresh air from the usual marketing pieces.

madengr 9y ago

I have been reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The premise seems to be that these actively managed funds, on average, don’t do any better than the market index. So just put your money in an index fund and avoid all the fees from the so called experts.

arielweisberg 9y ago
It's a good book and one of my favorites, but I prefer "The Four Pillars of Investing" by William Bernstein. [1] Even the recommendations there are more complicated than I prefer. Vanguard has some wrapper funds (Life Strategy, Target Retirement) you can pick from that mean even more simplicity and less room for error. Tax efficiency is the only reason I would get more involved. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio/dp/0071385290/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1510595025&sr=8-2&keywords=four+pillars+of+investing&dpID=5106QPDYQFL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portf...

dmix 9y ago

> The rate of loss only accelerated, and the recession of 2008 dealt this frail fund a killing blow. Recessions aren't all bad. They have a cleaning effect, sweeping up the cruft and inefficient operations, while exposing the outright frauds in the process. It's amazing the fund lasted as long as they did... Interesting read regardless, too bad it wasn't longer as the usual articles typically are on this site.

brandnewlow 9y ago
Also gives employers air cover to let go of the non-workers hiding on the payroll.
- snotrockets 9y ago
  idk, last recession, most financial management kept to their chairs: it was the low ranking employees that got the boot.
FooHentai 9y ago
>Recessions aren't all bad. They have a cleaning effect, sweeping up the cruft and inefficient operations, while exposing the outright frauds in the process. Feels a bit too generous. Like saying a fire that destroyed your house was beneficial because it dealt with all those pesky fire hazards you hadn't been aware of/addressed yet. The best you can say is that at least it prevented anyone else from moving in unawares and dying in the fire. But it's still a total loss for anyone who already lived there.

bearbearbear 9y ago

> An envelope had landed in our mailbox containing a check in the amount of $10.32 made out to one Anna Mae Heilman. The whole debacle of solving this mystery could've been avoided by not stealing mail from someone you don't know and instead marking it return to sender.