Would You Want a MARITES in Management and Economics?

Above is a meme I found on Facebook a few days ago. I thought I'd not be writing anything for now. Instead, I was thinking of giving a "sequel" to my Intrigador Financials joke post (read here). I feel the abundance of social media gossipers has given me the motivation to write another joke post. This time, it's the MARITES which means Master in Arts in Relaying Information Through Exaggerated Storytelling. We can all forget about getting a master's degree in economics. Instead, we can pretend that Intrigador Financials has now opened a financial literacy academy. We can start a new school of management with Intrigador Financials. Instead of a Master in Business Administration (MBA) or a Masters of Arts in Economics (MA Econ)--we can imagine having a MARITES graduate school program from none other than Intrigador Financials.

I was thinking about how Intrigador Financials' MARITES program will try to develop financial literacy. Chances are their preferred mode of payment will be cryptocurrency, preferably through Bitcoin and Binance. The MARITES program will promote the following promises if you join them:

1. Learn how to gamble your way to success.
2. Learn how to manipulate cryptocurrency and become an overnight billionaire.
3. Learn how to time the stock market by determining when to panic and sell your bulk-bought bull market stocks.
4. Learn how to do day-to-day trading and earn money fast through the stock market.
5. Learn how to reason out why heads of government are always to blame for inflation.
   
6. Learn how to enforce cash dole-outs and learn to reason why a PHP 10,000.00 rollout isn't inflationary. 
7. Learn why foreign direct investment (FDI) is bad and why the Philippines should remain in a protectionist economy. 
8. Learn how to effectively market products by Intrigador Financials. 
9. Learn how to play Axie Infinity at beat the other players. 
10. In the end, you can expect to have billions of pesos when you get your MARITES.

What's the course starter kit? Well, above is Charlie Munger beating down fake financial gurus. Yet, you'll probably end up having courses that are written by the missing Ruja Ignatova, the late Gerald Cotten, Tai Lopez (and his garage), and many more. I could imagine Intrigador Financials might even endorse the writings of the late Bernard Madoff and Charles Ponzi (who died decades ago). There are so many fake financial gurus that I don't think I can memorize all their names, except for those who get overly notorious. 

Chances are, I think this group (if it exists) will also align with the economist "think tank" IBON Foundation (read more here). I could imagine if we had Sonny Africa (who I refuse to take seriously) or maybe we could have Binance and Mavis Sky as part of the financial program. Maybe Mavis Sky can keep promoting Axie Infinity as a life-changing game. They will try to say that any scheme against them is nothing more than one done by jealous people.

If this program exists, I could imagine people will be buying cryptocurrency instead. For one, it's a lot more logical to buy devalued stocks either through DIY portfolio or through an index fund. One could consider keeping their AXA Chinese Tycoon Fund going or buying more from any feasible index fund. ATRAM has some good index funds. BPI has a good Philippine stock index fund. Metrobank has some good index funds. These stock funds can be useful in taking advantage of the dip. Though, I think Intrigador Financials will prefer cryptocurrency to hide their schemes. Just think about it how cryptocurrency has been used for criminal operations. I'd probably prefer cryptocurrency if I were a crook. It's going to be much harder to trace me that way. 

If this financial training program exists--I can imagine it should be either a pyramid scam, a Ponzi scam, or maybe even a combination of both. Getting a MARITES may easily get the first few easy gains. However, Intrigador Financials will soon rob X to pay Y who joins their MARITES program. For me, no thanks. I had my experiences in being scammed. Joining any too good to be true financial guru programs is definitely not in my agenda.