Contrarian Investing on Daylight Savings

by User Submitted

Submitted by LoS Reader “Matthias”

This weekend, per decree of our government, we all have “sprung forward” into “Daylight Savings Time”. One hour was taken from our schedule, that could have been spent on any sort of profitable or enjoyable activity. What did we get in return? A government IOU; a promise that this hour will be returned in six months time. Without interest.

Clearly, Congress is trying to push the American public into a ridiculous bargain. We could die in the coming six months, never to receive that hour back, or we could be getting the cold next fall, which would make the hour that much more un-enjoyable. And even if we subscribe to the notion of a risk-free government obligation, the time we are fronting the government should at least bear interest at the appropriate 6-month treasury rate. For the conspiracy theorists: Does anyone know, what the government does with the 300 million hours, that are being temproarily extracted from the lives of the American public? Is it the chronological fuel supply used to keep Dick Cheney’s cyborg heart running and provide him immortality?

Recommendation: With the entire country being in a short position of 1 hour per person, I went the other way. I set my watch not forward, but BACK. I have tentatively set my watch back 23 hours, which intuitively balances risk and reward, but I am not certain of the appropriate hedge ratio.

Lastly, how much of the run-up in Phoenix’ real estate market do you attribute to Arizona’s exemption from the national Daylight Savings tax? The regulatory risk of Arizona joining the rest of the country at some point must be properly discounted.



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Comments

  1. gingi
    March 13th, 2007 | 11:09 am

    and here i was excited to be returning with zero interest the hour i borrowed 6 months ago.. the old ‘chicken or egg’ axiom.

  2. Down Under
    March 13th, 2007 | 11:40 pm

    Clearly this interest free temporal loan to the state acts as a dead weight loss to society.

    Compare economic growth rates here in Australia:
    Those states with daylight saving had an average growth rate of 2.79% while the 2 states without daylightsavings (QLD and WA) averaged 5.1%

    Most likely this is due to the major reasons the daylight saving proposal was defeated in our last referendum – the extra hour of sunlight confuses the cows (leading to low bovine productivity) and bleaches the curtains (causing rent seeking behaviour from interior designers over the summer months).

    What more proof do you need?
    http://www.nodaylightsavingqld.com/Faded.htm
    http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/04/more_on_dayligh.html

  3. JCauto
    March 14th, 2007 | 7:28 am

    All I know is that I’m here at work at 7am and it’s pitch dark. I’m short that right there.