my job should not exist

[DanS]

I've no idea how US laws and regulations differ, but in Britain on a single-life, annual-in-advance, no guarantees annuity it was 5.8% last time I checked.

Cool. Thanks. Very helpful. And if the annuity were not for a person, but would serve as, say, a structured settlement in a lawsuit (i.e., not single-life), what would the return offered be?

[DaShi]

Yes, actually. Much more so than when doing physics research.

Sure, but when the dark matter aliens come to invade, you'll be wishing you were on the team constructing the anti-tachyon ray.

[KrazyHorse]

Sure, but when the dark matter aliens come to invade, you'll be wishing you were on the team constructing the anti-tachyon ray.

Why? It just sounds like making myself a bigger target.

[Hauldren Collider]

KH will be trying to sell them derivatives on the earth resistance defeating them.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'd much rather be working at GS and have ready access to plentiful gold-pressed latinum with which to purchase the freedom of myself and my family from our new alien overlords.

[KrazyHorse]

Why would I have to do that? We'd already be in their good graces for inviting them in while shorting Homo Sapiens.

[Drake Tungsten]

I didn't even think of that. This is why they pay you the big bucks.

[KrazyHorse]

After all, taking enormous positional bets is how you stay in business for 140 years...

[Drake Tungsten]

Are Homo Sapiens futures exchange-traded or over-the-counter?

[KrazyHorse]

Totally bespoke

[KrazyHorse]

The trick is that you have to have the bet pay off in something that will be valuable after homo sapiens dies, and there's an effing quanto correction. Estimating the right correlation structure is a *****.

[Drake Tungsten]

Totally bespoke

****. I was hoping there was a super-secret exchange located hundreds of feet below Battery Park...