The importance of a program like
KissFC

Possibly, apart from cancer and AIDS, compound interests are the cruellest thing in the Universe. If you think I am exaggerating, read the story below:

In 1626, Peter Minuit, a Dutchman, bought the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie Indians, paying with trinkets equivalent at that time to $24,00. A tremendous bargain, until we decide to elaborate a little. Let us suppose that that Indian tribe had tradition in dealing with numbers and that they knew how to invest their money with safety and profitability. Let us imagine, so we can arrive at a number, that the good investors earned an average of 8% a year on their application, which seems a fair commitment between profitability and safety. Working with KissFC Financial Calculator, we enter 24.00 for "Present Value",  375 (2001 - 1626) for "Number of Periods" and 8.00 for the "Interest Rate". Clicking the button "Future Value", we get the current capital of those Indians:

$82,057,739,561,528.30. What does this number mean? According to the best consensus I could find in the Internet, Manhattan, all its real state included, is currently worth $74 billion. Thus, our Indians would have in their hands capital to buy 1100 Manhattans. According to the same researched sources, the whole land in the USA is worth about 4.5 trillion dollars. So, our Indians, with 1/18 of their capital, could buy the entire USA. Following that chain of reasoning, it is easy to reach the conclusion that, with all that money, they could buy the world, Japan included.

I think that after reading this story, my dear reader is already fully convinced of the perversity of the compound interests when the rate is low and the period long. Is there anything worse?  Unfortunately, yes: much shorter periods with sky-high interest rates. Unfortunately, because that is our sad reality (I am talking specifically about Brazil). Automatic credit checks charge annual interest rates of 100% or more. Our credit cards charge up to 250% a year for clients that pay on installments (that includes American and European banks that operate in Brazil). Entering that interest rate - 250 - in KissFC Financial Calculator and clicking the button "Number of Periods", we get 23,037 years (23 years and 13 days). That means that, with our credit card interests, that value would be reached in the time of a single generation. Obviously, the victim drops dead right in the beginning of the process, just like in the jungle: the predators eat until only the bones of the prey are left and then, they go in search of new victims.

Not to know how to do financial calculations has broken many brilliant and competent professionals. May God help the poor man who thinks that, in the financial jungle, he just needs to know the figures in his professional area. KissFC Financial Calculator is an excellent tool for anyone who wants to take good care of his financial life, in an intelligent and effective way.