The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
How do Wizards make a living?
zetadog:
presumably, they can find a few gold nuggets or diamonds or whatever without having to sift through 50,000 tons of rock first
noblehunter:
--- Quote from: Bad Alias on December 05, 2019, 01:25:29 AM ---For basically the entire time your talking about, just knowing which ships are not going to make it into port would be extremely valuable. Also, the anti-tech field wasn't in play until after WWII.
--- End quote ---
I was thinking of the principle behind the anti-tech field, which is the natural order being grumpy at wizards. Fouling rigging or rotting planks seems like a reasonable inference of the effect that curdles milk.
smalenchak:
--- Quote from: dspringer1 on October 25, 2019, 08:34:55 PM ---I think the benefit of compound interest can be seriously oversold
--- End quote ---
It really can't be. If a wizard invests $5,000 in the year 1900 - about the average cost of a house at the time - simply in the S&P 500 index it would be worth just over $2.5 million today, and the wizard would be our equivalent of 30 years old. This would assume they add nothing more through the years (which they probably would). And even that's only an annualized return of like 5% or so- if they had any sort of active management (according to dresden at least, they have armies of investment personnel), that amount could easily double.
Compound interest is a very real and very powerful thing.
g33k:
--- Quote from: smalenchak on December 13, 2019, 06:14:12 PM ---It really can't be. If a wizard invests $5,000 in the year 1900 - about the average cost of a house at the time - simply in the S&P 500 index it would be worth just over $2.5 million today, and the wizard would be our equivalent of 30 years old. This would assume they add nothing more through the years (which they probably would). And even that's only an annualized return of like 5% or so- if they had any sort of active management (according to dresden at least, they have armies of investment personnel), that amount could easily double.
Compound interest is a very real and very powerful thing.
--- End quote ---
Yeah.
I presume the WC's financial arm serves as a bank for any wizards who care to invest with them (and I presume most do). I mean, the wizards are free to invest with JPMorgan, or CreditSuisse, or any other muggle financiers (instead, or as well). A fair number probably do so, to "diversify."
But if the WC has "armies" (even if only a dozen or so people) of investment experts... I'm guessing can they produce truly extraordinary results.
The thing I just realized is that MANY wizards probably get their seed money working for the WC. Maybe crafting an item or two (or more) or doing over work-for-pay (like the "investment personnel," for example?)... and what do they do? They give the money back to the WC, to hold and invest! The WC gets the fruits of their labor, AND gets to hold a bunch of that capital (& the benefits of leveraging it) only actually turning over money to meet the wizard's immediate needs!
The WC must be one of the financial juggernauts of the world. Hell, maybe a bunch of those "muggle" financial houses are just fronts for WC finances...
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: noblehunter on December 12, 2019, 05:57:06 PM ---I was thinking of the principle behind the anti-tech field, which is the natural order being grumpy at wizards. Fouling rigging or rotting planks seems like a reasonable inference of the effect that curdles milk.
--- End quote ---
But the principle isn't a general murphyonic field. It's always a pretty specific one. Post WWII tech, milk curdling, skin problems. As an aside, I'm pretty sure at some point it's mentioned that candle flames burning green in a wizard's presence was a thing. I'm not sure how that would have anything to do with a "what can go wrong, will go wrong" effect.
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