The older
letters
# 16
Recently
I put together a collection of quotes. Now there are millions of good coins. For all occasions. I
won’t include who said them.
1)
Women are expected to
do twice as much as men in half the time and for no credit. Fortunately this
isn’t difficult.
2) The words I am are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The
thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.
3) Whenever you see success, someone once made a courageous decision.
4) Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes in often perseverance in
disguise.
5) Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot.
6) The vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the virtue
of socialism in the equal sharing of miseries.
7) The highest reward for person toil is not what they get for it, but what
they become by it.
8) The worst bankrupt in the world is the person who lost his enthusiasm.
9) The test of success is not what you do when you’re on top. Success
is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
10) Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If they are any
good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
11) The heights by great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden
flight, but they, while their comparisons slept, were toiling upwards in the
night.
12) If I had 8 hours to shop down a tree, I’d spend 6 hours sharpening
my axe.
13) An autobiography must be such that one can sue oneself for libel and
slander.
14) When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you,
‘till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never
give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
15) Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
16)
Towering genius
disdains a beaten path. If scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor,
however illustrations. It thirsts for distraction.
17) Some people are so boring they make you waste an entire day in 5
minutes.
18) History is a collection of agreed upon lies.
19) The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal
with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.
20) The real difference between people is energy, will, purpose,
determination, character and insight. That’s the distinction between the
great & small. Popularity can’t hurt either.
21) The difference between life and movies is that a movie has to make
sense.
22) A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change
the subject.
23) A good person is one who isn’t worried about self, but rather
others.
24) The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the
noblest men and women of past centuries in which they reveal to us the best of
their thoughts.
25) You must automate, emigrate and evaporate.
26) A goldmine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top.
27) It is tact that is golden, not silence.
28) “Be yourself!” is about the worst advice you can give to
anyone.
29) Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately
command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our
lives.
30) It is the mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their
brightest hour.
31) Q: What kind of grad students do you take? A: I never take straight – A students. A
true scientist tends to be critical and somewhere along the line they must
rebel against all teachers.
32) What is conversation? It is clinging to the old & true, against the
new and untried.
33) To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts.
34)
The reasonable adapts himself
to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable people.
35) Everybody who knows how to read has in her power to magnify herself, to
multiply the ways in which she exists, to make her life full, significant and
interesting.
36) When you get the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
37) Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and
capacities simply by given the opportunity to do so.
38) There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of
improving, and that’s yourself.
39) In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the
silence of our friends.
40) Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who
are quick.
41) Choose a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.
42) First rate people want first rate people. Second rate people want third
rate people.
43)
I’ve never been
poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is a temporary situation.
44) Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to
die.
45) In all periods of life the greatest danger is not take chances.
Ok, on another
note, I was just wondering about roaches. How they change their sex after they
assess their environment. They make determination of the sex ratio and switch
if needed. I was wondering if humans do the same. We are born female which explains
the male nipples or secondary sexual characteristics. And this can explain
homosexuality and other transgender tendencies, since at some early point, a
chromosome is added which turns the female into male and he grows male organs,
and instincts. But what happens if the brain remains female and the body
develops in male fashion. Or the mind develops male and the body grows female. This
world explains a lot.
But my question
is, does a mother take an unconscious assessment of the sex ratio and breed accordingly.
Sure this sounds stupid, but I am serious. There is such a thing as hormonal
communication. Think of turtles. They have breeding schedules. It’s like
a switch turns on. They even have collective egg layering and synchronized
hatching. Ok, we are better that animals, but are we really? When a group of
women have close interactions over time, their menstrual cycles begin to
synchronize. This has to be a hormonal from of communication. So why does it
have to stop there? And it certainly isn’t social conditioning. Social
conditioning is a little girl’s craving for a doll. For a store and
playhouse. Her conditioning to nurture. Yet where does conditioning end and
instinct begin? There younger female foxes become helper foxes and want to take
care of offspring. You see this in primates also. They play mothering. Or what
about the masses of girls who love to the point of idolatry of rock stars and
such. Is this an instinct and prelude of mate preferences of females?
I saw a
documentary many years ago. They put male & female birds in separate cages.
Now birds are funny, since there is a lot of sexual role reversal among
different breeds. It depends on which bird is the more beautiful. Some birds
are identical, but in other classes of birds you can actually see who chooses
who. In some cases the female birds are all shining, beautiful and colorful,
while the males are kind of dull. Or the males are beautiful and the females
are dull. Like in a lot of cases you can tell a male turkey from a female
turkey, or a male peacock from a female or the most common: chicken from a
roaster. In birds when the females are beautiful they are competing for the
males and it’s male choice. Or when the male birds are exotic, it’s
female choice as the males compete. And that’s true in a lot of species.
When males compete they grow in size. Larger fangs, big manes, longer horns.
Look at the lack of symmetry in body size of lions vs. lionesses, deer vs.
does. The females will reject all but the most dominant. In this case
it’s female choice in body size and weaponry. Ok, now back to my point.
They put this bird next to a cage of female birds. The birds ignored him. Then
they took that male bird and painted a red stripe on his head. The female birds
got aroused and agitated. Then they painted a silver stripe on the birds and
the females went crazy. They began to peck each other and tried to get through
the bars. They established a hierarchy quick.
So if that is
understood, then with the premium women place in the beauty industry, technically
women should compete for men. Plus the population says there are more women so
male rarity factors should also favor male choice and female selection and
competition. And because men are bland compared to females’ need for
allure. Men should be the prize. And this can also explain young girls worship
the rock stars. Then when that sex instinct develops in men, well all bets are
off. Men then clearly begin to compete for girls. Her allure clearly comes into
play.
Anyway, I got a
guy named Rob and Jenny. Soon they’ll begin trading and it will be good. I’ll
share with you some info on how stocks move soon.
Love ya.
Yours
Lancelot
# 15
My
Loida, my Swan,
A
tiny mouse is surrounded by some hungry cats, so it’s squeaking and
squeaking and crying, when it suddenly hears a lion roar. A lion comes running
and the mouse thinks not to help.
But the lion chases away the cats and
helps the mouse to its tiny feet. The mouse thanks him graciously, saying if
there was anything he could do to help the lion, to call him. The mouse swore
eternal friendship. The lion laughed and waved him off.
A
few days later, the lion is walking through the forest when he is jerked into
air caught in a net. Men come running and beat him, then run to get sharp
sticks. When the mouse hears the roaring, he comes running and chews through
the net so that the lion is free.
I’m
not sure what the moral of the story is, but it has to do with never
underestimating the power of friendship in times of difficulty.
I
absolutely love the truths from Aesop. He ranks with Confucius. Both lived so
long ago. And their wisdom is timeless. You know plenty since it shapes our
culture. Here’s one. You know the lesson but you might be familiar with
the story also.
A
father didn’t know what to so about his family. His sons and daughters
were always fighting, always at war, refusing even to talk. So much rivalry and
resentment. One day he called them all together around a table. He then brought
forth a log created out of many sticks tight together in a bundle. He passed
the bundle around and told his family to try and break them. They tried but the
bundle was so thick they could not. He then untied them, and asked if they
could now break the individual sticks. They did with ease.
He
then slammed the table and said: “We are like these sticks. Unified we
cannot be broken, but divided among ourselves we will be broken.”
The
moral is: United we stand. Divided we
fall.
The
secret of power is no secret- it is unity. It’s the combination of
interest. Of wills. Of mutual advantage. It’s solidarity.
So
again, if a person was asked which organ of the human body is the most
valuable, you’d be surprised at the answers you’ll hear. All wrong!
Some people will say the brain. Others the hearts, etc.
But
think about it. If the lungs fail, you will expire. If your stomach fails.
Gone. If the liver, kidney or blood fails. Gone. Gone. Gone. The answer of
course is everything is equally valuable. The body is the perfect system. In balance.
It attacks invading organisms. You know I often hear this argument we only use
5% of our minds. How ridiculous. We use it all. The brain sends down signals to
tell your fingers to grow, and your stomach to rumble when you’re hungry.
So much silent
communication.
So
the problem is begged. Why no unity? I once found an answer in 2 unlikely
sources- a proverb (not biblical) and a comic (Batman).
In
the proverb, a governor visits a violent mental ward. There were hundreds of
the criminally insane and a single female guard. She walked among them without
a weapon. So the governor looked around and shocked asked her:
“Aren’t you afraid these criminals are going to band you together
and take over this place?”
She
said: “It can’t happen. Lunatics never unit.”
I
mean WOW! If you examine the implication of what she said.
To
hammer this home, the Joker once told Batman a joke. He said: “Two mental
patients freed themselves from their wards. They climbed to the roof, they only
had to jump ten feet to a second building, to freedom. So the first says to the
second: “Ok, I have a flashlight. I’ll turn it on and you run
across the beam to the other side, then I’ll throw it across and you hold
the beam steady for me, so I can come across.
The
second guy looked at the first in shock. “Are you crazy? Do you think
I’m crazy? I’m not walking across the beam made by your flashlight.
That’s crazy. I know that when I get half way across, you’ll turn
it off.”
This
is an example of disassociation when interest cannot align. That’s why,
as I think I pointed out in an earlier letter. General Motors is not a car
company. It is only a group of people. A unit of people, who design, build and
market things. That’s powerful.
Listen
to this statement. You can take my castle, my armor, my businesses, my gold.
You can take everything, but leave me my people and I’ll have it all back
again.
So
true. As the expression goes, money doesn’t make the man, it is man that
makes the money.
Hey,
I’m kind of caught up in football fever. I know you’re a girl in
all, but I kind of like some of the teams that they assembled in the last few
years. Is that ok? I know you’ll roll your eyes, but I really like it.
Now if certain teams start to suck and players get hurt, I won’t like
football anymore.
Do
you know I was afraid to love you? I was afraid you would become too necessary.
I was afraid you’d become the very air I breathe. I was afraid of you
being my super girl. The go to girl. You were giving me too much and
that’s terrifying. I miss your witty discussions. How you inspire me. The
never give up attitude. And you are matchless in courage. Before other people.
I feel empty. I feel empty with empty people.
Everywhere
there are limits set upon achievement, against expectations. But I was dreaming
with you. Dreams to dreams. And I really envy all the people in your life who
can stand in your circle. Who get to speak to you? Who get to see your smile?
Who can listen to you and be sure of your friendship? Who can be touched by
you? And take you and be sure of your affection? You really are a phenomenal
lover, I not only love you. I like you- we felt the same. We shared the same
taste. Our passion matched. The chemistry was wonderful. We were guided by the
same light. The same impulses.
And
talking to you. We have knowledge of what each other like. Think about how rare
a good talk is. Yes you can pass the time in careless chit chat. But with
you… we share our intelligence, our taste in music. It’s not about
do you know so and so. Ever been. If it wasn’t for him.
I’m
glad you are reading this. Over the years I have been trying to curb my
impatience. It took a long time before I learned something called calm. I want
our happiness to last always. We recognize each other. We have always
recognized each other.
And
I learned to do without friends. I know that bugged the hell out of you.
Friends are like accomplices in life outside your world. They are also
witnesses and investigators of unfaithfulness. Secretly conniving to separate
us. I know you’d rather not hear of other lives. But if you want to know-
you know I’d share that also. I’d share anything with you. Only
you.
Because
I want you to know me better. I’ll tell you a bit more about my past and
escapades, if you want. I’ll start next letter. Do you want me too?
Yours Lancelot
# 14
Wish
girl,
I’m
so happy. Can you bring me presents? I have a pet frog. I name her Allie. My
brother says you’re not real, but I just know you’re real. My mother
says you’re real as long as I say. Can you bring me some toys? I never
get anything. I’ll wash your magic toy bag. Can I come with you? Please.
Please.
When
I don’t hear from you:
Milk curdles in coffee. Mailbox
empty.
Toast burns. Toilet
overflow.
Hot water runs out. Finger
cut on paper.
Shampoo empty. Meat
spoils.
Rain comes. Newspaper
doesn’t come.
Shoelace snaps. Plant dies.
Envelopes don’t seal. Pages
missing out of book.
Pizza burns mouth. Pen
runs dry.
Light bulb goes out. Mosquito
bites.
Pimple on face. Loose
phone number.
Bored and annoyed by neighbor. Headache.
Nightmare. Heart
stops.
Missing
you.
I
just miss you. Let us stay enchanted. Aching. Shaking. Crazy. You will always
be young and fair to me.
Now
I have 713 million questions. I want to know who you are.
1) If you are mad, what should a person do to make you happy?
2) What is your favorite candy?
3) Did you ever write your book?
4) How do you want your life to be in the next 5 years?
5) What are 5 things you can do to make your life more interesting?
6) If someone went through your things they’d be shocked to
find…?
7) If you could stay at a certain age for 5 years, which would it be and
why?
8) What are 3 things you’d like to learn?
9) What is the best part of a relationship- courtship, sex, knowing each
other, or teamwork?
10) If you were invisible for 24 hours, how would you spend the time?
11) How often do you go out?
12) What are 3 things you find beautiful?
13) Tell me 5 of the wildest things you’ve ever done.
14) If you had the money, what are 5 things you’d buy?
15) If you could travel anywhere, where are the 3 places you’d like to
visit?
16) What is your favorite movie?
17) How do you spend a typical weekend?
18) What are 3 lines from 3 of your favorite songs?
19) What do you do for fun?
20) What traits best describe you?
Here are some
more questions that require some pondering.
1) You saw something you shouldn’t of.
2) You gave away a present you received.
3) You got what you weren’t able to get.
4) You gave into the person who wanted you.
5) You caught a person in a lie.
6) You betrayed and somebody was still your friend.
7) Somebody reminded you of somebody.
8) You had to give something up sadly.
9)
You cured somebody’s sadness.
10)
You figured it out.
11)
Thunder scared you.
12) It felt so good to hug somebody.
13) You did it with ease.
14) You were the center of a group.
15)
Your luck was excellent.
Now here’s an oh-la-la …
checklist.
-
Airplane bathroom -
Little person
-
Motel -
Reading stories
-
With 5 inches heels -
Writing stories
-
Elevator -
Trading escapades
-
Dominatrix -
Couples
-
Fitting room -
Triples
-
Limousine -
Board games
-
Lap dance -
Dares & Bets
-
Video taped -
Commanded
-
Club bathroom -
Commanding
-
Backstage -
Over 50
-
Pool -
Tongue piercing
-
Pool table -
Phone
-
Subway car -
Posing
-
Movie theatre -
Flash
-
On beach at dawn -
Rough & Wild
-
Yacht -
Tender & Romantic
-
On washing machine -
-
Costume -
Self
-
Ferris wheel -
Self watched
-
After workout -
6 yin, 9 yang
-
While driving -
Baptisms
-
Under a table -
Multi-hour marathon
-
Taxi -
Toys
-
Dancing -
Girl friends
….
la-la-oh
More
later,
Yours Lancelot
Hey
sweet Darling,
Where
are you? Is it night where you are? Are we together alone? It is I who holds
your attention and you are who holds mine? I jump into your heart through your
mind. I hope I can find the right words right now, to make you happy.
It’s
you I love. You. You. You Remember?
Ok.
I don’t have a throne to give you, at least not yet. But I’m
working on it. You deserve to be a Queen of an empire. Ok. I don’t have
gems and gold to give you. But I’m working on it. I don’t have
horses and land and property to give you. But I’m working on it. I
don’t owe a jet to whisk you away to adventures across the earth. But
I’m working on it. I don’t have a yacht to sail you on foreign
waters. But I’m working on it.
I
don’t have too much, but I have so much love to share. And if you give me
half the chance, I can make it all right for you, for me, for us. I can fight
for us. I can labor for us. I can build and create us. I can give you all these
things. And we can walk hand in hand as perfect companions.
I
miss you. I miss you. Remember getting dressed up and going to dinner and
watching foreign cinema. I knew you appreciated it. I understand your taste. I
understand you’re superior. You may think I might have held someone above
you, but I did not. Nobody compared. You owned me. My body, my mind and heart
belonged to you. You did know that. And I know certain things made you jealous,
just as certain things made me jealous. But I’m here to win you back. To
win your love. If it takes 5000 missives and a declaration of my love for you
to the whole world, then that’s my sentence. Because you deserve it. You
deserve the best. Because where my heart is, there is also where I’ll go
and remain.
Perhaps
I don’t have the ability to help you achieve fame, but it is in my power
to help you achieve happiness and wealth. If you command me to do so,
I’ll chisel you a sculpture. If you command it, I’ll pen you a
song. If you command me I’ll document my love for you, so that future
generations will lie in the grass and discuss our love and feel they are not
alone in beautiful feelings.
Hen
will you give me your heart? When will you give me the key? When will you help
me to find the way back to your heart?
I
need you. I need us. I’m ready now. Take me back. Stop doing this to me.
I’m your true fucking husband. Me- and you know it. Just as you know
you’re my true wife. There was too much passion between us. It was too
hit and too fast and we jumped our rail, and crashed. I’m a better driver
now and you had more practice also.
Find
a way to talk to me. If you are still ashamed of me, then give me a P.O. Box.
You are Cesar’s wife. Let me conquer for you. Let me put millions of
dollars in your lap. I have a team. They are learning but still too slow. You
know there are few as fast as me. You know there are few who maneuver as fast
as I. You know, because you know me. I am part of you. You were a vampire all
over me. “What are you doing?”… is all I had to say, and you
leapt up and it was ON! You were the best and you knew it. I saw the pride in
your eyes. You were so carnal. And I couldn’t sit in a room with you
without wanting you. How could that not have made an impression on both of us?
I’m in your mind, because you’re in my mind, constantly.
You’re still the star of 1000 fantasizes. Many fulfilled. When you said
“That was the k_____, … thing you ever ____.” I knew you knew
and something was fulfilled in you also. Yeah I remember, I think of that time
often also.
You
never knew my heart, because I hid it. You didn’t hear many declarations
because I wouldn’t declare it. You never knew many looks, because I
wouldn’t define it. We were too
cemented together. I told you everything. You were my best friend and you’ll
always be. Our kingdom. An aching dream.
Just
say ok. Just write and say that one word: OK. Tell me something so I know
it’s you. I love you more than any on this earth. I love you more than
I’ll ever be able to express. Give me the chance to make it right.
Let’s talk of our lives. Let’s talk of our dreams and fears. I
never told you but you felt so good. It was so heavenly, it was scary. I still
know your laughter. I still know your voice. I still know you. Make me your
slave. Give in to your heart. Listen to your blood. Love flows in your blood.
It commands the body. It talks to another’s heart in its own language. It
fevers the mind; it hungers and makes you sick. It makes you crash and toss in
your bed. You don’t hear any other person. Plus I know how you love. I
know the passion in your soul.
You
knew this would come. You knew we would communicate. You knew any contact would
stir passion. Passion is tricky. Misdirected passion, love is hate. Don’t
be afraid to feel again. Do you know how many people beg for a second taste of
love?
Sure
love anything, anything and it will break your heart. It could be a dog. Love
contains fear, blindness and weakness. But I’m going to keep you so. Just
love. Just love. I won’t famish you pr overfill you or pull the bowl away
as you’re drinking, or regard it as a toy. I do promise. I do. Into my
arms and be lost in me, just as I have no doubt you love me still. I’ll
be well behaved. Love undivided. A single love for a single love.
I’ll
keep your heart safe. And you keep my heart safe. I’ll keep you pleasured
and tingling and you’ll do the same for me.
Sorry
this one is so short. Next one longer.
Yours Lancelot
# 12
It’s
weird how they say mankind is the crown of creation. I guess, ‘so says
man’. But isn’t it amazing how out of nothingness, solids can form,
energy forms, then on a random planet, radiation affects it just right and a
protein is formed which earns how to duplicate and divide itself. Next it
develops an understanding of its environment, develops eyes and ways to
communicate with itself and its surrounding. And now here is man- self aware-
trying to understand all mysteries.
Yet
when you look at animals and insects, they don’t whine about their
condition. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They are
not demented with the mania of owning things. They don’t sing the praise
of those living hundreds of years before.
They
say what separates man from animals is his reason? I don’t get that.
Animals have amazing reason. An elephant does not just cross over a wooden
bridge. It calculates its weight in relationship to the weight of the
structure. Or take a puppy and put him on top of a roof. The puppy will bark
like crazy, but he won’t jump. Or put a baby on top of some steps.
He’ll cry but he won’t climb down. This involves judgment and reason.
I
have a friend who lived in
I
learned that Celine Dion is cancelling her Vegas show. That sucks. I’m
totally bummed out. I actually saw it. Five years ago they showed the opening
night on T.V., the complete show. It was so amazing. Like in one the background
is
You
know why they have all those cameras and mirrors in Vegas? All that faces
recognition surveillance? Because you have card counters. When you count cards
you can gain a mathematical edge over the casino. In most games, the casino has
an unbeatable edge. For example in roulette there is a pay out of 36 for every
dollar risked. But there are 38 slots. So if you cover all slots, you will still
be at a 2 dollar loss. This is how edges work.
But
think about how the edge shifts if a team enters and plays a game like black
jack 21. A group comes in and bets the minimum. They know the casino uses 6-8
desks of cards in a shoe. So this team sits down and plays and plays, and
looses. Their purpose is to exhaust all the low cards. They play and keep track
of how many high cards still remain. Once all the low cards are exhausted and
the deck is heavy concentrated with high cards, they signal the big player who
comes over and bets the maximum. So if he is given 18, and the dealer has 3
showing and a high card like 10 in his hand, he has to take a hit. If
he’s delt another 10 or a Queen, he looses with 23. And this happens
again and again.
Edge:
The team of players. For that reason teams are secret.
There
is a book called “Unskilled and unaware of it. How difficulties in
recognizing ones own incompetence leads to inflated self assessment.”
Isn’t this title brilliant? It applies to everybody.
I
think a lot of what happens in life is a matter of odds. Think about dice. If
you were to roll 2 dice, it’s best you decide to place your bet on 11,
than any other combination. Particularly if you are rolling for a number of
rolls. Think about this. If you put your money on 4, then you have 2 ways to
roll a 4: (2+2) (3+1). But if you put
your money on 11, you have 5 combinations: (5+6) (7+4) (8+3) (9+2) (10+1). So
in the long run you’ll have 5 times as many chances of winning with 11
than 4.
You can actually view life in terms of
extreme and normal. Like when we learn how to calculate an average in school,
is not accurate the (a+b+c)/3 wrong? (100+150+200 = 450/3 = 150 average)
Instead it’s a bell curve. The average height might be 5’5 for the
average woman. Most women’s heights will fall into that range. If it
peaks at 5’5 then a height of 6’5 is unusual and 7 foot is rare and
extreme. On the other end a height of 4’9 is unusual and 3’1 is
unusual and extreme.
Everything
has a normality and an extreme. Think about publishing. Most books that are
published don’t sell 50,000 copies. Then you have extreme books like The DaVinci Code or Harry Potter that sell 500 million. But instead of saying this was
a stroke of brilliance; could success be contributed to chance? Think about it,
if something has a 99% chance of failure, then there will be one incident of
success. Perhaps those books were the lucky lottery winners.
Think
of this game, or scam. Say you compile a mailing list of 4000 people. Then you
mail one half and say the A team will win. The other half you say the B team
will win. Well on one half you are going to be right. The next week you mail
the winning half and tell one half of the team A will win, and the second half
of team B will win. You repeat, and repeat and repeat. Your group goes from
4000 to 2000 to 500 to 250 to 125 to 62- by then these winning halves are
convinced you picked 7 consecutive winners. At this point you can ask for money
since they will be believers when in fact your choice was random.
So
everything from restaurant’s success to a nightclub to a toy may all be
random. Just the winning lottery ticket and not a matter of skill at all.
Skill
only places a bit of edge in your favor in some things. If you gave a million
people 10 dollars, and had them trade with each other, eventually only a
handful of people will end up with all the money. If skill is involved the
process will occur quicker. Life works with the power law of the call of the
many and the chosen few. Put 100 sharks in a pool with f100 fish, after the
fish are gone, the sharks eat each other until 1 or 2 remain. When a job hits
the newspaper in a big city, many will be called while 1 is selected. On the
planet Earth there are 600 billion people and about 3 billion of the opposite
sex. For a couple to find each other and select each other, while neglecting
the rest of the world, is a lottery. The few.
I
always had a vague notion of this concept. That’s a reason why I always
had multiple projects… I think it’s the correct way to go about
life, because it’s the only way to get multiple lottery tickets. Big
corporations believe in maximum tinkering. Innovation is in trying new things.
Many new things. You don’t know which idea will stick. But here’s a
lesson my dumb ass didn’t pick up on. You can’t innovate unless you
are willing to accept mistakes. A champion has to make a lot of tries and as a
consequence accept a lot of failure or there won’t be any learning. And I
guess you can’t call for risk taking and then frown upon and react to
tiny failures. It crushes the spirit of a champion. I know, I know don’t
say it. I feel terrible.
You
know I tell people about trading and one point I stress in this. Let’s
say you employ a system that looses you money, then looses money again, and
again, and again, and again and again. At this point you’d abandon the
system and conclude it doesn’t work. See the problem is, when you get
negative feedback, you respond to it. You’re affected by it. You respond
to failure. It’s human nature. But what if I told you that the system
worked 93% of the time? Those are great odds. It says if you use the system 100
times, you will make money on 93 attempts. Excellent. It also means it will
loose 7 times. You’ll loose money 7 times. So if those 7 times cluster
and you loose 7 consecutive times, you’ll abandon a system that will then
win 93 times. The point is when you place failure in the context of probability
and odds; it will remove a lot of anxiety.
The
funny thing is all of this can explain why the rich get richer. Once they win,
they can try more things and pick up more lottery tickets of life. This results
in a cumulative advantage. It’s a momentum play. A rock star breaks
through with a hit song. A mania results. His next album is garbage, but it
sells anyway. His past success creates more publicity and a bigger public
relation campaign, as more reporters sell information to a hungry public, more
hype that they themselves creates and more reporters jumped in on. A
self-fulfilling prophecy results and it truly becomes a winner take all
society. Extreme.
Martha
Stewart & Oprah become billionaires, the average women gets a job as a
nurse, secretary, domestic worker; their salary a speck of what these two
titans make. Money jumps out of your pocket into theirs.
Look,
I’m praying to the gods that there is really a power of persuasions of
lovers. I really believe nothing is really lost. Nothing can go so far that it
can’t be salvaged. And in love… well love solves all things. I
dream, I dream, I dream. I can close my eyes and see us holding hands on a
perfect clear day.
Between
us, who was then happiest? You made me happier than I made you, but now I want
you happiest. Who lavished on whom? You lavished more upon me, now I want it is
that you are lavished upon. You have been proud of me. I want to swell with
pride of you. I do. If anybody has ever despaired of you, I don’t despair
of you. You’re my girl. You’re my world. You’re my urge of
urges.
Be thou my God(dess).
You’re my 1 in a billion.
Your Lancelot
# 11
Hey lady, my Cheetah girl,
There’s
a gift I want to send you- an olive branch of peace. Actually it was gold
roses.
You
know a few years ago, I found out where the red heart came from. You know
Valentine’s Day hearts. Well obviously the heart in your body
doesn’t look like that. It is a flower that I’m sure people never
heard about. It’s called a Bleeding Heart. It is read and in the shape of
a heart. It even has an arrow. It’s godlike. Very pretty.
I
talked to some people in other countries, and they have different names for
this flower, in
What
you may not know, every flower has a story, and some are really beautiful.
Listen to the Tiger Lily out of
I
just love that kind of theme.
There
is a beautiful poem; it was called the bailiff’s daughter from Islington
or something. I can’t give you a direct quote, it is a beautiful poem,
but it say how there was this handsome man in love with the bailiff’s
daughter from Islington, but she was so shy, and said nothing when he declared
his love. So because he didn’t know what to think, he went away to a post.
She was so heartbroken, all her friends questioned her. She couldn’t take
it and she left the town to try to find him and spent 3 years on the road. She
suffered. Then one day she saw her man riding on a great stead returning to
Islington. So she stopped him. “A penny, kind Sir? For it would ease a
lot of my suffering.” He looked at here and relied: “First you must
tell me if you know of a bailiff’s daughter of Islington.” She then
said: ”She died of grief some time
ago.”
Tears welled in his eyes and he said:
“In that case take all my gold and my horse.”
So she uncovered part of her face that
was hidden, and burst into tears and said: “She stands before you and is
ready to be your wife.”
I
think that is a beautiful story.
Loida,
close your eyes and open your imagination. Realize how much is needed for
happiness. Imagine petting the long haired stallions the Cossacks rode in
There
is so much richness and variety if you allow it to consume your soul.
I
want you to know me for who I have become. I don’t want you to see me
with yesterday’s eyes, because I am not yesterday. I understand you
wanted to tear out this heart. Perhaps there are still wild dogs and dragons in
your heart wanting to rip. But why war? Life is short. Why harbor anything but
love. Rip anybody open and they won’t look good. Once upon a time, I allowed the scorpion to
sting me and others. But when you look at things, treating people poorly so
that they might treat you better is never good. Sometimes it’s the
hardest thing to learn. Yet it’s found when you focus on joys, when you
seek to taste joys, you learn to try not to hurt others or plan hurt towards
others.
I just want you to know, I’m going
to turn those dogs into birds and lovely singers. I’m going to be so good
to you that it will soften your heart. I stored up all this wealth of knowledge
for you. You’re my girl. I’m eternally yours. I’m yours.
I’m at your disposal. And out of my love for you I’m going to share
everything I have and am, all my joys and gains with you. It’s all yours.
I’m your sword, your child, your soul mate, your perfect companion, your
genie, your love.
I’ll
align my dreams and wishes with yours. And will spend myself to make them true.
You shall always be first, and in my eyes excel all others. If I could have my
wish I’d make life insufferable for you. Only happiness. Only smiles and
kisses. When you go to bad I’d rack your body in waves and ecstasy. I
only bring my higher self to you, as yours to keep. You are sufficient for me.
I’m willing to stake all for you. I want to be that perfect friend that
we search for our whole lives. Only love. 400% love. All for you. All for
Loida. And yes, I can support you now. I didn’t know how before. I
wasn’t sure. That’s why I couldn’t come before now. I
wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t know ho to translate my abilities
into providing a life we both could enjoy. Our life was too crowded. Sorry
about that also.
Did
you know, in Taoist belief they define love as a combination of A & B
loves. In B love, a person can watch a flower, watch it grow. Appreciate. While
a love is more likely to involve picking the flower, making arrangements out of
them. They say B love last and stay fresh, while B love can grow stale.
What
does that mean? Sure we cannot have the same thoughts. Nothing is repetitious;
tiny things are different. We wonder how we arrived at that decision, from year
to year. What was exciting becomes dull. The friends we cared the world for
shrink into shadows. The stars, the water can become common. Pictures so empty,
books that were so mysterious, collect dust.
I
just don’t agree that possessive love leads to staleness. Now I would
have agreed if they said, don’t begrudge someone else the possession of
precious things, because he is only the custodian, and must worry about theft,
and seeing them overshadowed by newer friends while you can enjoy them without
sharing his anxiety. And yes, ok I’ll agree that it can seem something
can loose its charm as the novelty wears off.
But that’s only for people who thrill in acquisitions and not in
ownership. Most people attach sentimental importance to others and objects. It’s
not a question of glitter but of meaning. If you hear a song for the first time
as you are experiencing your first kiss, that song will always retain
sentimental meaning. You could then possess this song without it ever getting
stale. It transports.
You
have girls that receive flowers, or pick flowers, and pamper them, display them
as long as they yield its maximum charm, then as the petals fall, they press
them in books and keep them and cherish them.
When
we taste a pleasure we want to re-taste it again and again. We talk about it,
describe it to others so that we may re-taste our pleasures and sorrows. We
love life because we love loving. We love joy. And that can come from taking
possession of things. We also do this to feel safe.
Think
about the instinctual cravings of man and woman. Women crave to be beautiful,
while men are programmed to be acquisitive. We want things. Why? Because we
must prove able to take care of women in this world. Why does he want money,
cars and homes? Who do you think that’s for? It’s for you. So that
you may choose him. And you may fret to know if you are attractive enough to
win him and keep him. You couldn’t change this instinct in man, just as
you can’t command the sun to stop shining.
Think
of things in that context for a moment. Many conflict ridden teens and adults
would rather be someone bad than nobody. If positive roles can’t lead to
obtaining the resources he needs, he’ll seek negative ones. Ask how many
women sacrifice for love, how they’d give up school for love. How many
women search for ways to be in the centre of the attention? How many drama
queens? Women in the end obey their nature and you got to expect the same from
men.
I
want to cater to you and pamper you. I want to be there when you’re 80
and we can shake our heads at the many chapters of our life. Again, I just
wanted to reach a level where I could make us safe in the world. And I feel
I’m there now. When I pick up a financial text book or trading book or
newspaper, and they are talking about the VIX, interest rate swaps, MAR ratios,
CDO risk- this is no longer a foreign language to me. I fully understand it and
have mastery over it. I know I failed you before, I know it. I’m so
sorry. But I want you to smile again; I want you to be so happy. I want to make
you happy and fill your life with love and pride and good times, because you
deserve it. You really do. You are so generous and kind. You are my heart.
But
I don’t think love grows stale. Only if you don’t know how to
replenish its fuel. People at times can’t merge, or they are not of the same
mind or they allow their inner demons to run amuck, and they wound their love
with lies and neglect and betrayals and fights, but that is only a rebellion
against a stagnant love that refuses to grow, and won’t forget the petty
slights. But you can sail the earth only to release everything you ever wanted
was always within and right before your eyes. Love can sleep. And it can be
reawakened.
Yours
Lancelot
#10
My
Latin Diva, my Loida,
Are
you aware all of us wear an invisible sign across our chest listing our
instructions and warnings? Ok, so they can’t be seen by eyesight, but
they can be seen by insight.
A
sign might say: I want to be important and respected.
I want to be admired and want attention.
I want to be appreciated.
I am beautiful and sexy.
I want to be regarded as thuggish or
intimidating.
I want to be regarded as strange and unique.
I am shy, safe.
I dislike ridicule, bothered by others
demands.
You
know these people. You see them every day. And I think you got to deal with
people according to their signs- if you wish to be a friend. I guess my signs
say I want to be popular, I want to be needed. I want to be successful. I want
to be smart and multicultural. I want to be in the known. I want to teach.
I
am not perfect. God I am trying to be less of a mess. Juggling too many things.
My attribute. My inability to say no. My recognition hunger. My attention
needs. My crisis inducing. My envy of others wealth. My impossible
expectations. My…
I
really have been working on it for years. I had to learn how to calm down, slow
the pace. Sit on the bench and watch the clouds sail. Appreciate the little
things. The simple things. And I got to always remind myself, people want to
feel good. People want to be treated well.
And
I think sometimes it is about how you change your perceptions. Say a person is
making contributions. Let’s say thing s don’t go well. Usually a
person feels crushed. When a person lets down someone, they feel it. But in
order to feel absolved (is that the right word?), whatever, anyway don’t
feel bad, instead feel good for all the little things that could be done. And I
find the best way to feel good is when you do good. When you make someone
happy.
Plus
nothing is easy. Can’t make the waves come any faster. People move at
their own pace, just as people love in their own way. You can only hope they
love, or do things is to your taste.
In
all, I find you control who you become. You don’t have to become that
person or this person. You don’t have to be bitter, or mean or depressed
or one to complain.
Loida,
you are so important to me. You are the most important person to me. You always
have been. And in my heart you had no rivals. Nobody was above you.
Our
intimacy where the best moments of my life. You made me feel so good. You were
the best. And you felt so good. Like heaven. I think about it often.
You
know I think about you, just as I know I am not far from your mind. And in case
you think I hate you, I don’t. You’re my girl. We are ultimately,
not our conditions. We are and were not. I hope you understand that. People
behave differently under different situations, remove that context and people
are genuinely wonderful. You know this.
Also
when people share their hearts, really open themselves, give their all. All
their heart is broken, it’s hard to open it again, they want to protect
it. I had so much immaturity then, but I’d be better in protecting your
heart now, caring about you. Only you. Not just for a season, but always. I
wanted to marry you one day. I saw us living small, but happy. Just us.
When
you look at people, you’ll find some people don’t handle stress
very well. They say love makes monsters, but I don’t believe that. I
believe it is stress.
They
say nor-epinephrine is released in response to danger- while epinephrine is
released in anticipation. This causes more frequent and stronger contractions
of the heart. There is also a resistant stage, because prolonged stress causes
severe pathologic exhaustion. The body can’t handle high adrenocorticoid
levels without dysfunction.
I
guess the best remedy for stress is sleep. Sleep for days. Sleep is an amazing
healer. Now of course, anxiety can make your dreams haunt you. The good thing
about dreams is that as that dream chemical is reabsorbed, dreams have a way of
erasing themselves out of your memory and that defies recall.
Like
I never understood when people say they have that feeling of déjà vu. You get impacted
with a memory and feel you experienced it before. I personally think you just
got a squirt of that dream chemical and it makes you think you experienced it
before.
And
I know that’s a powerful chemical. Melatonin. People who are
hallucinating and hearing voices are not crazy. All that’s happening is
that half their brain is being assailed with that chemical. Think
about it. When you dream, you see images, food, do things, have conversations
with people. You can eat food, laugh at jokes, have sex, even go to the
bathroom. Well people who are walking around having in and out conversations,
are half asleep. That chemical induces dreams. That chemical is weaving
together dream imatry and they are responding to it. They can be talking to you
one moment, and talking to a ghost the next. And yes those people are there,
but as dream images. That’s why they are given Haldol, Moban or Lithium
to suppress that chemical.
But
stress also causes hypersensitivity. That can make people into monsters.
Everything becomes magnified. You see insults in every comment. Paranoia. And
you’re simply explosive.
In
a medical journal I read these documents that emerged out of the
It
basically says if you cater to their illness, you might convince yourself how
sick they are and prolong the affair. The solution had to do with expectation.
Label anyone as mentally ill, support that illness and he/she will be ill, and
stay ill.
So
the question came. Why did these soldiers crack? Why? Because war is
exhausting. In combating fear he uses a great deal of mental energy. There is
an end point to those reserves. If there is no chance of relief and no factors
to sustain him, they snap. Hi judgement will not be good, alertness may suffer,
irritable, regression to a child like stage, cruelty, etc. The solution: sleep.
And the expectation is it will be better.
Think
about this.
Ok.
Let me lighten up the mood. Let me help you float. Have a seat. Play some soft
music in the background. Light some candles. Take about 30 seconds for each
question.
Think
back and remember a time you screamed with laughter.
Think
back to your last days of school.
Think
of a time when you arranged something beautiful.
You
saw another having the best time of their life.
When
life was cheerful.
You
were passionate.
You
enjoyed seeing the rain come down.
You
found something you lost.
You
watched a kite flying.
You
wanted to stay.
You
gave into the person that wanted you and you wanted.
You
made a dog insane with happiness.
You
felt mysterious.
You
granted a favor.
You
watched twilight fade.
You
cured somebody’s sadness.
You
thrilled at another’s jealousy.
You
felt you couldn’t get enough of something.
Your
favorite Christmas present.
You
saw a pretty scene.
You
approached someone sexually.
You
kept it.
You
had a really good conversation.
You
felt peaceful.
Do you feel better? More later, ok,
Darling? I know I don’t deserve it, but I want your heart again.
You’re my girl.
Your Lancelot
# 9
Hey
you, my Loida,
You
know, once I asked my dad “What is the grass?” He couldn’t
answer me, he didn’t know what it was any more than I did.
It’s
a complex question. Sure you can give a definition of grass. You can name the
chemical components of grass, even quantify it as a food sauce and how it grows
and expands. But that wasn’t the question. The question is really: why
grass at all? Why it’s purpose? The meaning of grass.
I
think the best answer was silence. It was noble that he couldn’t answer
it. He didn’t try to convince me or give me some crap.
So
much in life is misunderstood. So many people are misunderstood. And we have a
great quest for meaning. We look for it, and sometimes find it by attaching to
things that give us meaning. It could be the pursuit of money, of sex, of a
job, of a cause, of children, of a fulfilling life, of religion.
Oh
this search for meaning, we all sacrifice a lot for it. Give our lives to
various institutions for it. They become our identity, they become who we are.
And soon we reinforce it in a thousand different ways.
Even
take something like suffering. Man has a problem of justifying himself, explain
himself; he/she suffers from the problem of his meaning. Suffering is not his
problem, but why suffer? He’ll seek it out, he’ll be his own university
and laboratory, he’ll place himself in danger, and he’ll welcome
risk and hardship. It’s the meaningless of suffering and not suffering
itself. If you attach it to religion, if you attach it to chance encounters in
a hostile environment, then it suddenly has meaning. A human meaning. You are
no longer a feather in the wind. Coming from oblivion, gaining consciousness,
and returning to oblivion, no meaning, except the individual label we attach
after thinking about it for so long. An empty black board, until you write your
own personal story.
We
are born lost, without understanding.
I
love Greek mythology legends, because of the lessons they imply. But those
lessons are not spelled out, you got to study them and pluck the gems, and they
leave room for so many different interpretations.
Take
the story of Sisyphus. He stole fire and brought it to man. Went to hell and
plenty of defiance. Just a crazy story. What I want to explain is his curious
punishment. Really think about this, because it explains the conditions of
millions of individuals.
He
was forced to push a rock up a mountain. When it got to the top, it rolled back
down, and he trudged down, where he was forced to push the rock up the
mountain. For all eternity.
See
there is nothing crueler than dreadful, futile, hopeless labor. Picture his
body. His cheek against the stone, straining, pushing, struggling towards
accomplishing nothing. How many people find themselves in nowhere occupations?
It is worst than rats in a treadmill, running fast and getting nowhere. Work
with no true advancement, until when? You’re 65? Until you’re a
decrepit mummy who grinded away the best and most productive years of your
life. For a life that is merely consistent. Not working with a sense of joy.
Not maximizing income. Not bringing joy or feeling joy.
This
creates a situation where there’s hopelessness and meaningless that
doesn’t go away. I mean, how do we live and work that provides growth,
opportunities, new worlds and pleasure? How do you work without loosing color,
that sparkle, and the tiredness is not from an inner rebellion but is that
tired you feel when playing too long or after a deep fulfilling orgasm?
Many
people make wrong turns in life. That’s what life is about- pathways. But
so much is in our control. Think about it. Being blind is bad. But if
you’re willing to learn how to read in Braille, and move with a cane, or
dog, then life can deliver you countless joy. Helen Keller was blind and deaf
and she went on to write and lecture. She didn’t settle. She didn’t
give up. She didn’t just make the best out of her situation; she
transcended her condition and created meaning for her life.
Why
live in a closet? And if a closet if fine, then your universe is too small. A
person who can’t read is a tragedy, but what is worst is not trying to
learn to read. It’s never too late to begin. It’s never too late to
start anew. A person frequently believes: I stole once, so I might as well
remain a thief.
Loida,
if you can, I urge you to read a book called Les Miserables. Please read the book, the unabridged. It is said to
be the greatest novel ever written. I agree. It can’t be touched.
The hero is a thief who was a released
prisoner who was made bad because he stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving
family. He went to a town where he was shunned, he was taken in by the church
decided to steal all the silverware. He did. Caught by the police, and the
owner of the church granted him mercy by not only letting him have the silver
but give him more. He is suddenly transformed, and becomes an angel of light
while being dogged by his past. The book is excruciating and will wring tears
out of you from beginning to end because the decisions he is forced to make
pulls your heart strings. But it is also about a parallel life. A woman of
beauty seduced by a noble man who impregnates her, without any intentions to
marry her. She is shunned and can’t support her child. She doesn’t
want to go to the brothel, after the hero’s (who becomes a mayor) colleagues
force her from the job. (The mayor doesn’t know). She is lured to sell
her hair, then her teeth until poverty forces her to give up her child to
foster care while she enters that life. Her child’s care taker exploits
her by demanding more and more money for her child’s care, until she lay
sick and dying. The mayor arrives, wants to take care of her, and realizes she
is dying through his companies fault. He agrees to grant her wish to deliver
her child to her before she dies but something comes up. He learns the child is
abused and also sick, but somewhere else another man is condemned for a crime
the hero once committed. So the question becomes, does he save the child, allow
her mother to see her before she dies, or, go to the trial, deliver the falsely
accused, confess and not only loose his government position, wealth and power,
and return to prison to be condemned to death. He saves the condemned, escapes
and rescues the child, and brings her up while in flight from law. This is
merely an example. The problem and choices are endless. He becomes a wonderful
man.
But
the story is about starting over, battling out of dead ends, and righting wrong
turns.
You
are strong. I always recognized that in you. You are stronger than most.
Stronger than me. To a degree I learned strength from you. You demonstrated it.
You wanted to be the goose that laid the golden eggs just as much as I want to
be your genie in a bottle now.
This
is the problem of change. Making new lives, new attitudes, new viewpoints.
First we always have an investment in our decisions. We have an investment in
our lifestyle, our jobs, our relationships, to change anything; we feel that is
an admission that we were wrong. Even how we think. Even our beliefs. We spent
time adopting them. And we argue with others to protect our views from change.
And
sadly, most people are blind to change. They don’t really understand
where change is needed. For some change is never welcome. First people hate the
unknown, you know this. In the unknown, a new situation can be created which
other problems and issues will emerge of. And those setting themselves can
create change. As you know people view changes differently, the potential
consequences, personal impact, the cost. And even if they see change is
necessary, they may not be able to make the emotional transition.
I
think the one who voices change must craft a vision of glory. Moses
wouldn’t have been able to lead the Jews through the wilderness for 40
years if he didn’t offer a vision of a promised land. So I think time is
needed to implement change. Time is needed for the adjustment.
But
that vision is hard to construct because of a single question: How do I fit
into this? See for a long time you asked a question… What are we? I
didn’t fully understand the question, because I didn’t really know
the answer. You were drugging me, slowing weaving your spell. You addicted me
with so much pleasure; I began to see you in my sleep. Not good. The situation
was complicated enough without me hiding my love for you. You so know me. They
say anybody can sail like a pro when waters are smooth. But what separates each
other is can you pilot a ship when the storm churns the water? I do very well
on smooth roads, and not so good when the road gets bumpy.
When
I was growing up I was impacted by this cartoon. If you watched Bugs Bunny or
Tom & Jerry, then I’m sure you saw this one also. It’s the ants
and the grasshopper. The ants are working like crazy while the grasshopper is
under the tree, making fun of the ants, playing music. He keeps telling the
ants to enjoy themselves as it was summer. Why not enjoy? They told the
grasshopper they had to work.
The
winter came. The grasshopper was cold and dying while the ants were inside
living it up with plenty of food.
Well
this cartoon came from an old Aesop fable. The moral is: In times of plenty
prepare for times of winter.
So
true, so true. Winter will come. Winter will come in everybody’s life. It
arrives in the form of sickness, disaster, old age, trouble, loss jobs, ruined
relationships. Life is change. So prepare, prepare. Anticipate the future. In
engineering, if you were to design a bridge, and that bridge was to hold 10
tons, you’d build the bridge to hold 150 tons. Why? Metal and land erosion, and over capacity.
You’d always create a margin of safety.
This
is also a good thing when you implement change. Knowing what to suspect. Having
that vision of life. Well it counters desperate moves when you’re up
against the wall.
Finding
the stock market was a godsend for me. It’s purely an intellectual
pursuit. It can be done from anywhere in the world. It’s like if you want
money, you just enter the market and get it. As much as you want – as
long as you know what you’re doing. You can trade from a bathroom in
Linda, kindly offer $10,000 dollars on the
30 long bond.
Were at 99 3/32
1 Buy. (or sold! or I’ll take
that offer)
Bob [Dealer], you can sell $10,000 of the 30
year treasuries to this gentleman.
That’s agreed.
This transaction takes 5 seconds. Money
sails from one account to the next. And it’s done electronically where
you can place and match your own orders, and then the transaction takes 3
seconds. Then you can be faxed confirmation orders.
And
one of the major questions is: how much does it take to start? That is an odd
question. There are penny stocks that can be brought for 1 cent each. You could
buy 1000 shares for $10 dollars and if the stock rose to a dollar you’d
make $ 1,000 dollars. You could also buy options to buy great companies like Morgan Stanley, Coca Cola, etc. for 5 cents each, but you are betting there will be
a price move of a certain magnitude in a certain amount of time.
And
in commodities and futures you can buy mini contracts of currencies as low as
100 dollars to control 10,000 dollars worth. Or mini wheat, soy or corn
contracts as low as 50 dollars. [a 1 cent move is equal to $10 dollars since it
is only 1000 bushels as opposed to 5,000 bushels for a regular contract.]
So
it’s relatively inexpensive to start. And it’s kind of easy to set
up an account and make transactions. You open up a commodity account with a
deposit and use that deposit to trade with.
Capital
gains taxes are 35% of your gains and commission cost [brokers] are 7 dollars
per transaction.
The
hard part is to understand the relationship between asset classes and
predicting moves. As an example:
Take
gold. Yeah gold is used in electronics, and jewelry and it counter balances
currencies, blah blah blah. But more importantly is to understand the
relationship between gold, silver, platinum and copper. Here’s where math
comes in.
If
gold is 800 dollars an ounce, and silver us 10 dollar an ounce, then the ratio
is 80:1. That means it takes 80 ounces of silver to equal 1 ounce of gold. Next
you’ll find platinum is 1600 dollars an ounce, so gold to platinum is 2:1
or it takes 2 ounces of gold to equal 1ounce of platinum. Next you’ll
find copper at 3 dollars an ounce. And that ration to silver is 3.3:1, or it
takes 3 ounces of copper to equal 1 ounce of silver.
Once
you know this ratio, you find this ration holds to a degree.
If
the electronic sector booms call for a high demand of copper, copper prices will
rise, and to keep that relationship in place, silver must rise in direct
proportion, will in turn push prices up along the rest of the chain.
So
in the metal case, you’d look at the spreads between metals. Usually the
engine is in currency moves. Gold and the dollar show a negative correlation,
which means they move in opposite directions. When the dollar gets weaker other
currencies get stronger and rise. When gold prices fall, the dollar is getting
stronger.
All
this has predictive significance. You must know what leads what, what lags
what, and what it means if those relationships change.
Let’s
say gold rises but platinum falls. How would this play out? Will gold also fall
or will platinum also rise? This will determine how you make your bet. This is
a question the market may throw at you, hoping you will get it wrong and loose
money.
The
key is to know the tendency from historical data. Your system may tell you to
check other variables. Such as if the dollar is also down, the gold should stay
up and that means platinum should fall. Or perhaps copper is also down, which
means gold should fall also since platinum is down. And other variables can be
added on and tested, such as bond and stock market moves. Once you know these
relationships, you can tell when something is out of line and you can make your
play accordingly.
Over
years you can collect observations and develop trading rules such as:
‘As the dollar weakens, the price
of oil, gold and grains increase. ‘
Now,
I was talking to somebody today about commodities. Corn rose from 2 dollars to
4 dollars and stabilizing at 3.40, yet soybeans rose from 8 dollars to 10
dollars a bushel (mid Aug.-Nov.), cotton from 57 to 65, wheat from 5.40 to
9.80; these are colossal moves when you understand the magnitude of the
commodity you control.
The
dollar during that time fell from 82 to 77 cents against most currencies. And
oil rose from 68 dollars a barrel to 100 dollars.
So
as of Nov 07 this rule holds true. But here is the issue:
Sugar did not move, and stays within a
normal range. With grains all rising, why not sugar? And will it rise or fall?
And when? It’s an excellent question, and happily I know the answer. When
you look at a can of soda or a candy bar, and look at the wrapper, you’ll
see the word corn syrup or dextrose, glucose or fructose. All this is sugar
made from corn. With corn in such abundance from ethanol demand, the
buy - product is corn based sugar. This
competes with sugar cane & beets so it will depress prices. So depending on
what corn will do, sugar will respond. If corn prices rise, then more people
will plant corn and so much corn on the market will drive corn prices down, and
if corn falls or collapses, less people will grow corn since the there’s
no money in it. And corn syrup will rise and cause people to use cheap sugar,
causing a demand and prices will rise.
This
is the logic behind a trade as I see it, with amazing predictive significance.
I am trying to find worthy players so bad, people trust worthy, it’s not
as easy as imagined.
But
as I indicated earlier, if you traded a contract of sugar, the amount of sugar
you control is 120,000 lbs. Or one solid train car worth of sugar. A 1 cent
move means you gain 1 cent for each pound (120,000 lbs. or 120,000 pennies).
That comes to 1,200 dollars for each one cent move.
If
the stars align, the price move could be substantial.
I
am a bit upset- Visa is coming out. I am preaching Visa to people since last
year. It may come out tomorrow. I wish we could share again.
More later, ok. Darling.
Lancelot
# 8
My
Loida, my Spanish heat,
In
love, they say the beginnings are nice. To a sense that should be true. In that
courtship phase both individuals are showing their best selves. Words are always
tender, every art is always pleasing. It’s delicious.
So
often times, this time is so pleasurable, people tend to get imprinted like
baby ducks, who would believe a battleship is her mother if she’s caught
early enough. Again it’s so pleasurable that both parties might instigate
fights and break-ups, so that when a break-up occurs they can re-taste the
beginnings again, as they attempt to repair what was momentarily separated.
The
question you can ask: “Is welded steel stronger than steel that has never
been separated?”
Welded steel is stronger.
Is
it any surprise that there is so much talk about makeup sex? But check this out
Loida, that pleasure is only sharp due to the contrast. We are actually
conditioned from childhood to understand, after good comes bad and after bad
comes good.
Imagine
being a baby. Your mother picks you up and caresses you, but because your mom
has other things in her life, she puts you down in your crib, alone. The child
internalizes this anxiety, which after pleasure comes anxiety. You become
vulnerable of loosing it. You become vulnerable to loss.
Think
about what that means. Really think about it. See, people may not fight for
gain but they will fight to avoid loss.
Love
is so emotionally charged; give your heart to anyone, to anything, and you are
vulnerable. When you love, you are no longer your own master, you are a captive
to your own heart. Your fate, your emotional sanity is dependent on somebody
else. Sure it’s easy to say “Nobody makes you happy, you make
yourself happy.” That sure sounds good, but it isn’t true. You can
say “Nobody can be pleased against their will…” That sure
sounds good also, but it’s not true. Another person can be a stimulant.
And depending on how you are stimulated, you will react.
So,
love anything, including a pet and it can hurt you. It can show you
vulnerabilities you never knew existed in yourself. Love with a hyper intensity
and it can make you do wrong or make you do right. You can’t
underestimate the power of passionate feelings, of love.
Now
here’s the thing. Since there is no pain like the hurt love can bring (it
brings a pain where no band aid can, and can be potentially life altering),
people fear love. The very thing they seek and yearn for, they fear.
If
you understand this fear, then you’d understand why so many people
don’t expose themselves fully. They’ll nibble at love, they hold
back, and only offer crumbs.
Or
they’ll mitigate the effort of love, instead of being consumed,
they’ll dilute the effect; in activities, in affairs, in aggressive
neglect.
But
what you might not be aware of, is how fighting is used to relieve the tension
and blunt the power of love. To free oneself from the vulnerability. Often we
are strongest when angry. Anger and love are not really compatible. They can be
but not usually. Biologically it’s the same response, it affects the
temperature, it arouses, it makes the heart beat, but only the perception and
actions can be different.
So
we often use anger to combat our vulnerability. Since we are preconditioned to
believe that after good comes bad, we prepare for bad usually after our most
vulnerable moments, and often times we pre-empt it if it doesn’t come
fast enough. We purposely do things to disengage ourselves. Fighting is an
effective tool. Treating your other poorly after periods of closeness is an
effective tool.
Imagine
love like filling a balloon with air. Too much air and that expansion ends in
an explosion. A rupture. So we unconsciously deflate it slowly. We want love,
but we want manageable love. And instead of allowing yourself to feel the bliss
of being swept away, being lost in those butterfly feelings, and allowing to
feel the blessing of its pangs and stings. We are scared by it and do whatever
it takes to push it out of our lives.
That’s
why they say you can only love once. Or the first love is the purest. Because
we have that innocence and not enough sense yet not to fight it off. So we feel
those peaks and gut lurching valleys, and those long lasting hurts. It rather
is a beautiful thing.
So to maintain what they believe is a
perpetual high, they feel love, they deflate by warfare, then work to fall in
love again by make up.
Sadly
I don’t think the majority can feel love, either they felt little love so
much that they built up an immunity or they simply never felt it because they
refuse to be vulnerable.
Also
if you look closely, love always has a strange dynamic. No two people love
equally, it’s a crock. One person will always love more. The relationship
will always mean more to one of you.
Imagine
asking yourself and making a decision, who will love who? Either you are going
to love that person or they are going to love you. Would you rather be in love,
or have that person in love with you? It’s rare you’ll find an
equal love.
Strangely
a lot of people would rather be loved, because it gives one a better sense of
control. It gives you more freedom. It allows you to get away with more. But a
lot of times it backfires, a subtle shift takes place and you fall in love.
Remember passion and pleasing acts are stimulants, you respond to it, it
can’t be helped in a lot of cases.
However,
for those who never give their heart, it can’t last anyway. Sure it can
be convenient, but when you assume a false role, you feel unsatisfied and bored,
and begin to yearn for love that you’ll most likely find outside the
relationship. It has to happen- it usually does.
Now
I always asked, why six months? How come the majority of relationships
don’t go the distance and have 6 months lives? I guess it takes that long
before you learn about the person, for the spell to fade and for you to
discover you don’t like what you see. Don’t forget, you can’t
really love at first sight. Humans are complicated. You may love, but you can’t
really know if you are more compatible and in harmony.
Think
about this. It’s like the question of trust. Sure you can trust. But with
what? Do I trust with my life? Do I trust with my money? Do I trust with my
secrets? Do I trust you with a sexy rival? Do I trust the person will stay in
love, honor and cherish, and do nothing to hurt and disappoint?
The
trust issue is by degrees.
And
so is love. Yes, a person can love, but how much? How much? How far will they
go? How will they continue to demonstrate their love?
So in six months fro most people the
well runs dry. Those ‘I love you’s’ become hollow
words, a cover up of lack of things to talk about. You told your best stories.
They know your friends, problems, wishes, fears. So what next? Do you spend
your time asking about how their day went, which varies so little, in an
attempt at a boring conversation? After six months, both of you are won and
there’s no seduction, even the sex can become mundane. You stop dating
and instead of going out, you come over and stay in. And often, to escape from
the boredom of each other, you escape into T.V., or other people, because the
conversations are no longer stimulating. Instead of spending 4-5 hours on the
phone, you can’t spend 5 minutes with each other before running out of things
to say.
When
you love somebody, when they are compatible, you can talk to each other
forever. You remake yourself constantly so that you’ll have something new
to share. You both continue to grow, and develop with each other or
you’ll outgrow each other, just as you do music, clothes, jobs, friends
and mindsets.
Which
brings me back to the next point. Direction, Direction, Direction. In six
months you usually know where they are in life and where they are going. And
sometimes their journey does not include you or perhaps it is not a direction
that is compatible with your own goals. And as I say, I don’t care how
much you love each other, if you are not working towards the same goals or
believe in the same goals, it’s not a match. And the sacrifices and
contortions you make will not bring relief or pleasure, because you are moving
too far away from where you want to go.
In
life there is no finish line. When you run out of goals, when you run out of
things to say, your relationship is dead. And your fights will be from
rebellion out of a relationship that is no longer growing.
See
only fairytales, and commercials, have these happy endings. Boy gets girl, girl
gets boy, curtains closes. Or the couple sign the papers for their new house,
curtain close. The funny thing is, life goes on. There is an after. What
happens as the stress begins of paying that mortgage?
There
is always that questions of what’s next? By is born- what next? You slept
with each other- what’s next? You move in- what’s next? There should
be a natural progression of what’s next. When you ask that question and
you hear crickets? When nobody knows? The relationship hit a wall, it’s
dying or is dead. It can only rot from that point.
For
you, I’ll always grow, I’ll always teach and I’ll always
share with you. I can actually talk to you forever. I always loved the way we
communicated. I loved reading to you. I love sharing my thoughts, sharing my
body. Being around us. That other stuff wasn’t the true us. You are
beautiful to me. I want to take care of you. I do belong to you. You are
wonderful. You are my Loida. And I will work hard not just to win you back, but
to please you. You add a dimension to my life and I know I can add to yours.
Your
Lancelot
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I
use a macroeconomic view to investing. Most people use charts and graphs, to
show what the stock or bond or commodity has been doing. They look for chart
patterns and hope they repeat. The problem with this approach is that the
charts show the past and predict the present, but say nothing about the future.
A
second problem is that traders are not trading companies or resources but the
perception of other traders. So the objective is where will traders send
prices. Behavior can be predicted. When a lot of people, when a few people with
big money, say the market should go this way or that way, that’s where
the price will go. If it’s wrong, then as they recognize they are wrong,
the price will go the other way.
When
I construct models to trade, I first document tendencies. Like if I was trying
to figure out if next years DOW will gain a lot or loose a lot. I might start
by understanding it’s an election year. Next I’ll do research and
find out how the market does during an election year, and whether it makes a
difference when a Rep. or Dem. Is trying to win the White House.
Next
I’ll ask if interest rates are at a certain level and inflation is at a
certain level, how does the market respond, and what industries tend to do
poorly or well under that economic setting. How does each government respond
and how do commodities adjust. And so on and so on. If I want to get accurate
measures, such as if the S&P 500 index falls by 10%, there is a 15% rise in
bonds, a 5% fall in currency and 25% increase in the price of gold, then
I’ll use math and calculate the correlations.
Once
you have a historical tendency, then you can accurately calculate where prices
should go and what could change so that it is no longer valid. With this
information you can get into position, before the public understands
what’s going on.
Imaging
running a department store. You can anticipate next year’s swim wear
styles and buy them in the winter, and sell them in the summer.
Like
right now oil is at 95 dollars a barrel (buying 1 contract gives you control
over 1000 barrels, so each dollar move is 1000 dollars). Now the question is
what influences the price of oil? There are 4 factors. Political stability in
the Middle East, OPEC pumping out more oil, driving season which slows in winter,
and the dollar. The dollar is the biggest influence. The British pound is twice
expensive than the dollar. So if you want to buy oil in Britain or simply use
their money, the price of a barrel of oil would be 47 dollars.
So
by watching the dollar rise in value, the price of oil becomes cheaper. And if
the value of the dollar falls, then oil becomes more expensive.
Now
airlines are dependant an oil. So if the dollar rises in value, the price of
oil will fall, it becomes cheaper for airlines to buy, they save money, they
lower their ticket prices, more people will fly and the stock will rise.
So
I can chain together elements and predict what other industries will do. And
when you’re good, you can piece together more pieces of the puzzle. By
watching gold you can predict the dollar, by watching silver you can predict
gold, etc.
You
can discover these tendencies by going back over prices as far back as 1820. I
have price charts of cotton going back to 1790.
I
think I explained to you homeostatic function. Think about your body. Your
ideal temperature is 98.6°. If your body gets too hot, there’s a response
to cool things off. If your body gets too cold, again there will be a response:
shivering.
In
most commodities there are trigger points. Once that point is reached, there is
always a market response.
Example: The dollar falls, everything in the US becomes cheaper or foreign
money becomes stronger. So money rushes into this country and lifts stock
prices. Bond prices fall which lifts interest rates to slow things. High
interest rates make the dollar become stronger, which makes foreign investment
leave the US, which sinks our stock market and causes bond prices to rise,
which lowers interest rates.
It’s
easy to figure out trigger points, such as how low does the dollar have to fall
to set this in motion. Next by examining such as interest rates you can
determine industries that are punished or who benefit. Retail companies like
department stores take off when interest rates are dropping below 2%. But
health related companies do bad as well as telecommunications.
Once
you know that retail companies will do well, and then you can start searching
for which company will show the best gains. Will it be an industry leader, or a
company that has been doing badly but shows improvement?
So
a macroeconomic view becomes a microeconomic view.
Then
once you assess the likelihood of the move, you use daily price movement for
timing. When to get into a trade.
And
lastly a concept called money management, controlling how much you loose when
you loose. And techniques to add to your investment and magnify your bet using
a concept called leverage. It’s a process of using credit or using your
profits to buy more.
I’m
in talks now with a guy named Rob. He’s very eager. I’m just
settling the trust issues. There are several plays that should be made before
year’s out. Arresting the dollar, Orange Juice, wheat collapse, oil
decline, gold decline. These moves can be huge, substantial.
Your Lancelot.
Hope
to hear from you soon.
# 7
My Loida, my sparkle,
You
were always so warm, so loving. So generous. Sure I remember jus as you do. But
we were best friends, those mornings, walking on the beach at dawn, watching
the sunrise, how the world was ours. We didn’t even have to talk. There
was so much unspoken between us, knowing. We were so in tune. You were my girl,
my world, and I was your guy. You’re supposed to love him.
I
want to take you out. I want to show you everything. I owe you the rest of my
life and I’m prepared to dedicate it in making you happy. Happier.
There
is always a chance for a new beginning. You have to believe that in your heart.
Things can always be turned around.
I
would love to provide for you. To send you to New York and check you into a
suite in the Waldorf Astoria. Send a limo that is at your disposal and
charge cards so you can shop on 5th Avenue. To buy the perfect
dress.
Then
I’ll meet you that night at Tavern on the Green. It’s a restaurant
with thousands, rather millions of blue X-Mas lights in the trees; it’s
like a wonderland on Central Park lake. I’d be in a tux and we’d
drink and get giddy, then I could beg you for forgiveness as we ride in a horse
drawn carriage in the park. I could hold your hand. The carriages have candle
lanterns and it would be beautiful to see candlelight sparkle in your eyes.
The
next morning we can don roller blades and go back to the park to 72nd
where people park their cars and blast music, and people show up with boom
boxes, and it’s like a make shift disco, people are fun and alive, and
doing synchronized dances, and ballet and roller disco. Don’t worry, I
show you how to skate. After we could get a rowboat, and have a picnic while feeding
the swans.
We
could spend that night club hopping. We could hop in a taxi and club hop all
night, from red rope to red rope. We could cage dance over the dance floor,
twirl glow sticks, and dance until we’re all hot and sweaty. And we could
end the night sitting on a bench on the Brooklyn Bridge, where we’d have
the best view of one of the greatest city skylines and cityscapes.
Now,
if you want to see something weird and mind-blowing, we can accommodate you
there also. This is a very liberal and wild city. Oh yeah, plenty of places.
We
could spend the next morning test driving classic cars or going to various
museums. The have the Museum Of Natural History- it’s colossal. It
has many many floors. They have the world of dinosaurs, with life sized
skeletons of all dinosaurs. You got sections of wildlife in life scenes. Like
wolves attacking a grizzly, wolverines and exotic birds like condors. Then
there is a section for sea life, king crabs, monstrous squids, all manner of
sharks & eels. Even a life size blue whale. There is the insect world and
all cultures, from Samari to Rosetta stone, from asteroids to the hall of gems.
You get the idea.
There
is also the MOMA, which is the US premiere museum of art. You can see work of
Renoir to Degas to Rembrandt. Or if that’s not your speed, then I’d
take you to the museum of broadcasting. We can sit and watch any program of any
T.V. show in the history of T.V. Or we can get off on any commercial.
Or
we can go to Chinatown, and go to the park where hundreds of people assemble
three times a day doing Tai Chi. You’d love Chinatown. Every street sign
is written in Chinese. The phone booths have those Chinese wings on them. Even
some of the buildings are in Chinese design. The movie theatres, newsstands,
taxi drivers, all Chinese. I’ll take you. Show you around.
Next
door to Chinatown is Little Italy, where the Mafioso’s roam free in 3,000
dollar suits hanging out in bars and restaurants. A very storied history.
I’d
also love to take you to FAO Schwartz, the greatest toy store ever. Young &
old go there to play. They have a Barbie world, every doll ever constructed.
They have a largo world. You can play videogames, or play with train sets, or
keyboards you step on, you can put a kid rock tape in a talking Elmo. Or look
at stuffed toy animals like a giraffe that cost 17,000 dollars. Toys from all
over the world. It make you giddy and like a kid again.
Oh
there is so much I wish for you to discover. Like you must go to a movie on the
duce. Three blocks away when blockbusters come out. It cost 20 dollars. But on
the duce you can see exactly the same movie, actually you can watch a triple
feature of current movies, but the cost is 3 dollar, and you can stay all day,
you can live in there. Many people do. When you enter you’ll see people
living in there. The man who sells you a ticket might mumble about seeing
demons and witches. The floors are sticky, the air is foggy with drugs, the
movie is out of focus, people are throwing bottles at the screen, people are
singing or fighting and heckling the films; you might see a woman giving birth;
you got to bring a plastic bag if you want to sit down. There’s a chance
you can slip on a human turd or vomit. And not only are there rats but cats
walking around. People are actually go to movies and bring their pet.
I
would also love to take you shopping. We could walk around like lazy devils and
go into Fendi, Escada, Ann Taylor, Bulgari, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, Saks, Lord & Taylor,
Chanel, Tiffany, Cartier.
I
can always take you by train to Coney Island. It’s an amusement park
(kind of) on the beach. We could ride the Cyclone roller coaster until we are
sick, or we can go into the haunted house and pretend to be scared, chanting
spookarama… spook-a-rama!
I
would recommend sleeping on the beach, but that’s scary. We could get
mugged or a body bag might wash ashore.
So
much to do. Shakespeare in the park, or we can go to Washington Square and
watch acrobats, who flip over people, and those Cirque Du Soleil people, and we can see comedians in the park
who are so funny. They draw huge crowds, and it’s like the ultimate Def
Comedy jam. They don’t stop until you fall down laughing, begging for
them to stop. Trust me, when they pass around a bag for collections,
you’ll be glad to give them 3 to 5 dollars. There’s a guy named
Charles and a second guy named Albert Orange- these two guys are perhaps the
funniest two people on the planet; they draw a new crowd, about 150 strong
each, every ½ an hour. In the same park you can listen to live concerts or just
bring bongos and jam along.
They
had something on the beach called the full moon rhythm party. People would meet
on the beach at midnight every full moon and set up tiki torches and people
bring bongos and they jam. People dance, girls are dressed in saris or neo
hippy stuff- and people are making out. It’s kind of tribal. Well this
gravitated out of New York. It’s electrifying stuff. Very free and
giving.
We
could go to a foreign film festival. These are fantastic. Or we could just sit
on the side walk in the village. On the east side there are all these
skinheads, neo punk and gothic witches, and we can just sit and gawk. Or we
could be active participants, and go shop in stores like Trash and Cheap
Jacks, buy all this old vintage wear. You could wear a corset and thigh
high f.me boots.
There
was a time when I was punk rock. I would wear eyeliner, had spiky blue hair and
wore black satin tuxedo with tails with a silver chain, it would float like a
cape when I walked. I wore no shirt, but a bow tie like a Chippendale stripper,
and my pants were all deconstructed with Russian slogans, and I wore a pair of
combat boots. You could walk around dressed like that and tourist would follow
you and take your picture.
It’s
all there. They have fashion avenues where all the design studios are, and
there’s always a fashion going on. The lights go out, the music starts
blasting, those models strut out , those camera flashes start exploding and the
crowd goes crazy. It’s so intense your heart begins to pound from the
drama, glamour and euphoria… you can’t help it. Loida, you’d
love it. I just know you would.
Even
things that don’t seem like fun are so crazy. Like bowling. You might
join in a group that’s playing a
type of spin-the-bottle but by bowling. Or billiards… I’ll teach
you. I’m pretty good . Not a pro of course.
Or
we could get an audition magazine and just go on calls for just the fun of it.
We might even land an extra on a T.V. show or commercial or movie. This can
just be for fun. And if you like T.V. we could go sit in the audience of a
sitcom or talk show or soap opera. There’s always something going at NBC
studios, or ABC or CBS, even if it’s just a game show.
And
you know that saying how a little birdie told you, this is true in New York.
You can always find out where’s the party. Manhattan has 25 million
people. Somebody is always celebrating something. I could make a single phone
call and get the location of six happening parties or where so & so
celebrity will be. Since I’m down with Baird Jones who rules the night.
I’m pretty good at decoding newspapers where there’s always hidden
party information. It’s like doing a Da Vinci code puzzle.
But
many times you can be walking around and somebody will tell you where the party
is. There were a number of times the dude and I came out of a China club to
cool off. We were sitting on a bench on the middle of Broadway with traffic
streaming by, and a group of people tell us about a penthouse party in a hotel
a few blocks away, or a house party and we go crash and have a blast.
Or
I’ll take you to see bars like Coyote Ugly and Nightbirds,
which are very real and always ON! Or we can go to an outlaw party. Somewhere
in the city, at a secret location, at midnight 1000 people are going to descend
on that place and party until it’s broken up. Like perhaps a McDonalds,
and McDonalds isn’t notified. It’s a parade of but cracks and
areolas. People dancing on tables, dominatrixes yelling for hamburgers, music
blasting, alcohol passed around, homeless man as the doorman and crazed
happening in every corner. Twins who are joined break dancing, go go boys and
pixie girls, people streaking. And the Pantheon of painfully hip.
And
so many restaurants, every imaginable culture upon earth, and themed cuisines.
Like restaurants where everything is plunged in darkness. You can’t see,
only smell and taste your food. Or restaurants in buildings so high up, you are
above the city in the clouds- literally.
It’s
too bad they don’t do helicopter tours above the city anymore. I would
love to take you. And we’d get a second place in New York. I could trade
during the day and could plan our nights. And we would just be us. Just us.
I’d put nobody before you. Help me soften your heart. Please. You know
I’d do anything for you. You know that. I belong to you. You know that.
Your
Lancelot
# 6
My
Loida, my angel,
Did
you know there are islands around New Zealand where parrots cannot fly, where many
of the birds hop around? The food is close to the ground, and there are no
predators. Perhaps there really is a survival of the fittest at work. Think
about a process of natural selection that has been documented. In Britain the
pepper moth went from the edge of extinction back to abundance. Think about
what intelligence had to take place; the awareness. The peppered moth lived on
silver birch trees, but in the factory district the pollution and soot turned
the silver trees black. And birds began picking off the visible moths. Suddenly
the caterpillars responded by mating only with their darker relatives, and soon
all dark colored moths had the advantage. The peppered silver moth went to the
brink of extinction. The caterpillars would not mate with others who would
become lighter. Then with clean air bills, pollution was cut, the trees turned
silver again and the process reversed. It’s a marvellous example of
survival of the fittest. Perhaps this also shapes the perception in human
beauty. Who has the winning advantage, it’s based on culture at the time.
Oh
this concept can be applied to so many things. Think about the ghetto problem.
Obvious there aren’t enough jobs to supply the swelling ranks of
impoverished. No jobs mean low revenues and inability of the city to tax, so
without tax revenue they can’t keep the environment clean. No tax
revenues means they can only afford to hire incompetent teachers, and
can’t combat growing crime. The students in school can’t see how
social studies and calculus translates into their environment. There are no
factories and major corporations in the area that require those skills, and
shape the local schools. So kids say “Why do I need a+b=c if I’m mopping Tacobell’s
bathroom, or bagging groceries or as a sales clerk in the dress shop? There is
no variety and no block buster pay check.”
They see criminals as heroes. It’s
exiting, they have power and supply needs, they command respect and fear. So
they gravitate to those fields. Where they see advantage. The women see 50
cents, or NFL stars or basketball stars, or drug boys, and they consciously
select those types as the new fathers. Tall women select even taller men to
produce taller sons who will be future basketball stars. They don’t see
the advantage of being doctors. They only see escape through crime, sports or
music as socially acceptable ways. It’s a question of expectation. The
media reinforces these conditions, and more and more kids drop out to be these
things or head in those directions using schools.
Another
example of Social Darwinism taken to the max is Nazi Germany. Race laws. The
super race was blond with blue eyes. A protected species. Blond girls were
harvested. They had laws regarding heredity and pure blood intermingling. They
exterminated the ill, the decadent and the inferior, regardless of future
contribution, age and sex. Your blood could indicate what job you could hold,
who you could date, and what treatment to expect. Imagine a Jewish woman
sleeping with pure blood Germans to dilute her own blood, ashamed of who she
was.
Social
Darwinism is an evil. A group seeks advantage or lords advantage over others.
The Muslims, the gays, the illegal aliens. Who are we to decide anything for
groups?
You
know, we should travel to see all the thrones of heaven on earth. Egypt, Syria,
Greece, China, Jerusalem, Petra, Mesopotamia, Rome, Nineveh. In the end, more
than the holy land we all search for heaven on earth and beyond.
You
know, Dante gives us a good description of hell, of eternal damnation and
torment. But there are few images of heaven. Sure there is music and pearly
gates, but these are complex images that can’t stir us more than pain
& suffering. You can say Milton’s Paradise Lost is a pretty image of
heaven before the epic rebellion, but even his account of Eden, you come to
realize God created man out of boredom. All that beauty in creation
wasn’t enough. Then he say man was bored and created Eve as his companion
and help mate. And again, if beauty, love and joy was enough, how could they be
tempted and violate the first commandment of thou shall not know, and plunge
the species into struggle and the loss of heaven on earth?
Another
account is like Valhalla or an Avalon. In the Echtrai, a woman emerges from out
of nowhere and offers the hero a journey to a land of yearning, within the
magical mist, to show him the marvels of a marvellous land. A place without
grief, without death, without old age, streams & skies of every color, or
music, pleasant company, without struggle, of happiness and endless provisions.
He couldn’t stay for 300 years and returned to struggle. Even Ulysses was
tempted by the siren to stay in her land of endless beauty and after a time, he
turned it down.
Why
does this happen? What causes us to thumb our nose at perfection? Paris Hilton,
Britney or Lindsay, they are so bored. Each of us find ways to destroy our
relationships. We fight so hard to establish them and we pull them apart with
the same hands moments later. We love songs and later after too much exposure
get sick of them. We buy homes and dream of other homes in other locations. You
love your diamond earring but not enough to wear it every day. This is not the
same as diamond rings which women wear as a symbol of unavailability.
Yes,
I feel we are just made this way. Due to how we are made, religion can take
hold of us. Think about this. Imagine a cat. Sitting in a living room, suddenly
a ball of yarn comes rolling by. The cat is going to jump up and chase it.
That’s its nature. Now imagine yourself, sitting in a living room and a
big ball of yarn comes rolling by- do you get up and chase it? No. You’re
going to look around to find out where it came from. This is our nature. To ask
questions. To never stop asking. That’s our curiosity. To know.
When
you think about life, it’s pretty amazing. Here you are. Alive. But you
are aware you on a planet that is flying in space. You are flying in space. And
when you consider the vastness of space, you got to realize you are an
invisible dot on an invisible dot. And can you also grasp that you are also
stardust? We are stardust.
So
of course we are going to question is there life out there? Is there life after
death? What is the meaning of life? So we search for meaning. And religion
solves part of that craving for our origin (we have a reverse engineering
problem. Take an ice cube, set it out and watch it melt. Can you predict the
shape of the puddle…Nope. [Can’t solve the future]. Now look at the
shape of a second puddle… can you predict the contours of the ice that
produced it? Nope. You can’t reconstruct backwards either.) But also
religion gives us a code of how to behave.
This
code of behavior is also a problem. Because moral codes are not for all the
time, they must be placed in historical context. If you were to advocate slavery
today, you’d be a fool, but not true in ancient times, in light of modern
times it’s wrong. But it was acceptable and preferable in ancient times.
Many things, like our pollution, might prove wrong in modern times.
And
you got to remember how the bible was used as a tool. In medieval times, the
dark ages, when cathedrals were built, and the priest class had power and they
steam rolled across the world, stamping out enlightenment and competing
religion with the sword. And they oppressed the people, suppressed learning and
salvation was obtained through the priest. Then Martin Luther stood up at the
diet of the worms and screamed “Through
the scriptures alone”. He basically said man was his own priest, his
own church.
And
you look at times now. These huge congregations, so much money flowing in.
Priest with 5 homes, jets and mansions. Preaching the gospel. How ridiculous.
Even in black churches, the pastor has gold rim glasses and alligator shoes.
They claim to follow a lord who walked barefooted! Who said to give all
they had to the poor and pick up the cross and follow me. See what I
don’t like about religion is that it creates a cloak to hide in. This
constant communication with heaven, constant appeal to heaven, constant
expectation of heaven’s help, while at the same time ignoring humanity,
of all things suffering and needing. See when you do nothing, and leave
another’s plight in heavens hands, that’s just selfishness
disguised. You got to remember, the church does not pay taxes, and it has the
power to tax, it’s called tithing. Is that the right word? Well they take
10% of everybody’s salary. Think about this. A government is strong
because of its tax revenue; it can then buy schools, have social services,
create a military and thousands of other programs that are free. Well, religion
could compete and assume social services. But in reality, go to a church at
midnight; the doors are locked. Why? Isn’t it a sanctuary?.
Couldn’t it be used to house and feed the homeless & lost? But that
would mean less money for their radio services. Their counterfeit lip services
as they molest their choirboys, and sleep with the ladies of the congregation.
Hell, Jesus didn’t have a wife. Nuns give up physical pleasure and take
the vows of poverty, live in convents where they pray all day for the souls of
all men. Buddhist monks choose poverty, and so do many Muslim.
Just as I said, love isn’t in
words but actions. When the Nazi invaded Rome, the Pope closed the Vatican to
fleeing Jews. It didn’t want to get involved. Have you noticed, when
disaster strikes it’s not the church that rushes to the aid, it’s
the Red Cross. They give. They are the real deal. They go into combat zones and
help all, the enemies, the allies, us and all victims.
Yet
you got churches screaming about abortion & gay marriage as a sin. They
should be screaming about how prisoners of war are tortured, how elderly are
abused in homes, or how Teri Shrivo was killed. How people die from diseases
because they can’t afford health care.
How insurance companies cheat millions when their homes & lives are
destroyed. How people freeze to death because they don’t have clothes, or
go hungry because they don’t have food. What do you say “God takes care of the birds,
you’ll have better in the next life and here’s the bible.”
While they go relay in their yacht.
They
say history has been shaped by fanatics than by entire orders of the system.
You can’t say a single person can’t make a difference. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Hitler. I always
shiver when you hear about martyr. Dying for love, others or causes like the
greater good. But if you understand love, and have ever allowed yourself to be
consumed with it, then you could honestly say I would die for you. In the end
isn’t love the goal for which we all work. Even if it’s just to
feel useful.
Look
at Van Gogh. I’m not sure if you know the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But
he is the leader of the Impressionist movement. It’s like he makes soft
images using dots of colored paint. Well he fell in love with a hooker and cut
off his ear and wrapped it in silk and gave it to her. He sadly killed himself
later.
But he worked so hard and never sold but
a single painting, and not a single article was written about him. He
didn’t care, he just worked for her, giving all of himself for art, never
asking for anything. And he had a brother who gave him money his whole life
long, so he might paint. And he died 6 months later out of sorrow, after
learning how and why his brother killed himself.
You
can understand why he was immortalized. He did not paint out of vanity, but to
please a girl. And you get this rarely. Look at the Coral Castle in Miami; he
spent 30 years constructing that impossible masterpiece. I think to honor his
dead wife.
And
what about the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan, the emperor of India, was grief-stricken
when his wife died. So he created a palace of gold and gems for the woman he so
much loved. They are both buried in that palace. But it is always a symbol and
testimonial of love. I want to take you there. I want to take you everywhere. I
would love you to something equally great. That’s why I spent years
mastering the markets, to make as much as I can to spend it all on you.
I
remember the first time we were together, after so long, so much build up. After
I saw that look on your face, how you
were energized. You had that look of vainglorious triumph. You couldn’t
hide it. I never have seen anybody with that look on her face. Usually I think
girls hide it and share it after, with friends as you recount. It’s that
look where your friends can always pick up, because you’re smiling at
nothing. And I know how it felt to me. You really do feel good. Too good. It
was so good, it was mind staggering. I guess you knew that You really put the
hooks in me. You knew that. Opened that door to my jealousy. I couldn’t
handle it.
Anyway,
let’s discuss the market.
I
want you to understand a boom and bust cycle. Picture a mountain. Prices rise
to a peak, then decline. Up one side of the mountain and down the other.
Most
industries show this pattern. There is a time to invest. If you understand this
cycle, it can keep you from investing in shopping malls in declining area and
ghost towns.
There
are many factors that produces this pattern, competition (imagine 30 sharks in
a pool with 100 fish, after the fish are eaten the sharks start to die until
very few are left), also debt, incompetence, but also product cycles and
innovation that occurs elsewhere.
While
most companies strive to adapt, most fail to be innovative. Traders must be
aware of innovation elsewhere because companies never see it coming.
Think
about the music industry and think about the money you could of made if you
invested in the idea first and the money would of lost as the product became
obsolete.
a) records b) 8-track tapes c)
cassette tapes d)
walkman
e) CD’s f) DVD / VHS g)
recordable CD’s h)
iPod / MP3
i) downloadable music j) music downloads on your phones
Products make money and the stocks rise.
Then products loose demand, become obsolete
stocks fall. If you look at some true
examples, you’ll see the following. The NASDAQ is a stock exchange that
has mostly medical, biotech and technology companies.
In
1998 the NASDAQ index was at 1500.
In
2000 the NASDAQ index was at 4500.
Two years of sustained rising prices.
In
2000 the NASDAQ index was at 4500.
In
mid 2002 The NASDAQ index was at 1000.
Two wealth destroying years of falling
prices.
This
is a boom and bust cycle. It rises and crashes. Look at the real estate cycle.
Step
1: When interest rates are low and businesses are doing well, people borrow
money or use their surplus to buy homes, pay rent and buy land.
Step
2: Landowners and rent seeking landlords, product and service providers,
all swell the surplus of money and raise their prices and rents.
Step
3: Inflation of prices become wide spread. Businesses start struggling to
pay rent, they spend more and more to pace with rising prices. .
Step
4: The government grows alarmed, raises interest rates to cool off
borrowing and to check inflation.
Step
5: More businesses struggle, many default on loans, many cease to exist.
Step
6: Land prices and rents decline, because landlords see more and more
vacancies, as businesses can no longer afford high prices.
Step
7: An oversupply of poverty is now on the market. A glut of half finished
developments projects that we are now
complete with the originated during the good
times.
Step
8: So many places, so few tenets. Landlords and developers go bankrupt. Prices
crash. Defaults wreck banks, and loan tightening slows economic growth.
Step
9: The government grows alarmed, interest rates are lowered, tax benefits
are offered, borrowing begins, and business cycles improve. Cycle repeats.
This
is the classical boom & bust pattern. It is going on right now. We are in
stage 8. You know I wrote this a few years ago, after going back through
history.
By
understanding this cycle, you can actually understand cycles in things like
cement and lumber. In stage 1-3, lumber prices explode upwards. They slow then
stall in stage 4-6, and crash in 7-8 and improve again in step 9 as the cycle
begins.
In
the commodities game, lumber prices are at a 15 year low. The government just
started to cut rates, and lumber prices have stabilized and as rates begin to
come down, lumber will begin to rise again.
Her
is the deal. A lumber contract is less than 700 dollars. It gives you control
of 112,000 board feet (about 22 miles of lumber), a rise in just a few dollars
adds up to a lot of money. And since it’s at the bottom, it has an
extremely large way to advance. You could ride this move into a fortune.
Your Lancelot
#5
My
Loida,
I don’t really know what I’m
feeling today. You know, some days are better than others. Smiles sometimes
don’t last, but the good thing is frowns don’t last either. And to
keep everything in perspective while a situation can always be better, it can
always get a hell of a lot worst also. So ok is ok.
I
wish I could write to you directly. I would write you 5,000 letters.
These
hedge fund guys are becoming the new kings of the earth. Usually the pay
structure of managing accounts they charge over 20% of all gains. They are
getting half billion paychecks. And I’m so mad because I can stand toe to
toe with them.
I
wish we could run away together. I would take much better care of you.
I
am a bit worried about the dollar. I see this colossal trade, but whom can I
talk to, who would understand. The dollar is a variable in all US investments.
Say IBM raises from 90 to 100 dollars a share. A ten-dollar profit, right? Not
necessarily. If the dollar fell 11% then you’d have a 1-dollar negative
return. Perhaps than 10 dollar rise was simply keeping pace with inflation and
failing.
Anyway, the dollar is tanking. Oil is at
95 dollars a barrel (actually 46 dollars if you measured it in British pounds
whose money is twice as valuable), food cost is high. And to save banks,
housing and consumer spending, the Fed is cutting rates. This is like injecting
the arm with dope. It feels good now but it will have a bad result. China is
dumping dollars, so if you combine that with interest cuts you are setting the
stage for hyperinflation… Very very bad. Trust me, it’s bad. Our
Fed Chairman is university bred, not market bred, and he’s going to fuck
up economically with his perfect pattern textbooks. Life is way to slippery to
be captured in a textbook. So I think the Central Bank of the G7 will have to
act in concert and defend the dollar. So to play, you must buy dollars, and
sell Yen, Pound and Euro.
There was this song by Alphaville
“Forever young”.
He sings “Forever young…I
want to be…forever young…Do you want to live forever, forever,
whenever…”
I just heard this song on the radio. I
love that song. It reminds me of my friend named Colin. We were in high school
and I was in awe when I found out he could drive. We drove to my friend’s
house on Roosevelt Island to visit a friend who lived in a beautiful split-level
condo. I would still love to live there. We were singing the song in the car. A
group of us. It was our anthem.
Colin
was a visionary before his time. He told us he read in a book, to find a
profession that was scalable. I didn’t know what he meant then, but I do
now. Imagine scalable equation of labor vs. income vs. increasing the amount of
zeros. Let’s say you call a broker and sell 1 stock. Now let’s say
you call a broker and sell 1 million stocks.
You
are calling the same place; it is the same exact call, almost same words and
same amount of time. If you write a book or a love song, you don’t have
to write 1 million copies, you can simply write one and it can be
electronically duplicated 5,000 times or 1 million times. It takes the same
effort. This is an example of a scalable profession.
A
dentist is not a scalable profession. Like a restaurant owner. He cannot get
rich in a day, his income is limited by how many tables or chairs he can fill,
and each meal or cleaning is on a singular basis. If you are working at
McDonalds or an office, you are subject to budget constraints, competition and
periodic pay increases, but you have little control over your income and you
can’t expect blockbuster payouts.
In
the scalable dynamic it’s like a band, crumbs from undiscovery, eating
beans & soup. Then suddenly fortune and fame. In stock it’s like
fishing, mild returns, poor set ups, then a homerun. The great thing in the
markets is there’s always something, always a homerun, you only have to
be savvy enough to find it.
A
few years ago, I woke up at 2 in the morning. There was a thunderstorm unlike
any thunderstorm I ever experienced. The news said there were 21,000 lightning
strikes. It went on for 90 minutes. It was so pretty. All I could say was wow;
I wish you could have seen it.
Another
time it was after 4 o’clock in the afternoon. It just rained; I guess
there was a mist still in the air as the sun came out, because the entire world
was based in an orange glow. It was like you were looking through an orange
filter. I guess light was bending around the moisture. Again I knew you’d
appreciate it.
Another
time I really thought of you was a few years ago. The news reported the Aurora
Borealis was extending from the North Pole, it was supposed to reach as far as
Cuba. Solar winds, that shimmering blanket of color, greens, blues and reds,
creeping across the sky in the dark. I watched from sundown to sunset. It was
such a clear night, so many stars and the sky turned a light blue, it was weak,
but you could see it. Another wow. I wish I could have been to Alaska. We
should have been there.
The
world is so rich in sights and beauty. A friend of mine named Steve once gave
to me a tape of songs. So beautiful. I don’t know the names of the songs
or who sang them, but in one song it said
“Don’t just sit and dram and
watch life on a stream… your life starts now, you don’t have to
compete.”
I’m
not sure what the last part means, but I know what the first part means, and I have
thought about it for a long long time.
Do
you want to hear something crushing? I don’t know if I ever told you
this. One Christmas Eve I was hanging out with my friend Eric. There was this
huge area in Midtown where there are a lot of homeless. On this particular dusk
it was cold. All these homeless people assembled. A very interesting sight. The
two limousines pulled up and this guy with a nice suit, his wife, their kids,
maids and a few friends, got out and began handing out nice coats, blankets, bags,
coffee, sandwiches and envelops with money.
I
never in my life saw such kindness, legitimate and practical. They
weren’t repulsed, they hugged all these people. Touched them; spoke so
kindly. Cards with shelter info,
clothes, even job info and mental health. It messed me up. I wanted to be these
people. This wasn’t the church. But people.
Once
I went to a shelter and saw this young girl who came in who carried a large
silver can, and she was talking to it. The can was really battered and dirty.
She left the can on the floor and somebody touched it and she went off, she
picked up her can, talked to it and went to a chair and cried. So I asked
(stupid me) “What’s up with the can?” She said inside the can
was her mother’s ashes. She told me her mother was a junkie and she was
abandoned at birth in a bathroom, and she was adopted and sexually abused. All
her entire life she wanted to find her mother. She quit school, ran away, lived
around truck stops. And she saved up money to track down her mother, and didn’t
have the heart to confront her. Then after years her mother was in a hospital
dying of aids. She stayed with her mother until she died. She felt complete.
That was all she ever wanted. She used all her money to have her mother
cremated, and until she could afford an all gold urn, she kept her in a silver
can. Her mother watched over her and would now live within her. Nothing could
affect her at this point or ever again. She solved her own puzzle.
Wouldn’t
that be great to solve your personal puzzle? Usually this occurs at the end of
life when you ask if there is anything at all you lack, miss or regret. And it
comes down to personal puzzles. I doubt you will care that the sum of triangles
is 180 degree. In the end so many things are unimportant. Like in the middle of
a kiss you shouldn’t be thinking about your memory card or what gymnast
won the gold.
Ok
speaking of atmospheric beauty. I read in the Enquirer about a cow or bull that
was pulled up in a tornado and touched down through somebody’s roof, where
it landed on its back on the bed, got up and looked at the guy who ran into the
room. There was a Mexican standoff. Both staring, not moving. Then the bull put
his head down and gorged the man. I guess he was pissed off at being tossed
around a tornado. Even if the story is bogus, it’s kind of funny.
Now
I did see something funny that happened to my mom. As kids my mom would take us
to Peekskill Ranch, which was fantastic. We went 3 times. There were three
different housing sectors: Dodge City, Laramie and Carson City. We would
always stay in Dodge. It was over a game
room, and disco. I was really young and one year I developed a crush on an
older girl, and once a girl and her sister developed a crush on me and would
literally chase me around. Anyway, Peekskill had basketball courts, it had
indoor & outdoor pools, miniature golf, archery, canoeing, softball, and
they’d have events like 3-legged races, or egg tosses where you stand
really close, toss the egg to your partner, then take 3 steps black. Soon you
got to catch an egg across a hugged distance, and if you don’t catch it
right, it might explode. Even catching it right could make it explode. You play
everything for prices. It’s great stuff- real family fun.
Once
I went on a hayride, the back of a huge truck filled with hay, about 14 of us.
Well it was boring until we hit the highway when me & the two girls set it
off- and it created a huge hay fight. We came back, most of the hay was gone.
We were laughing and it created a great memory. Something so initially boring
became a blast of fun. We made our own fun.
Well,
they had a corral. You could race about 75 horses in it. At night we’d
have tournaments. You have a balloon on your back and it was basically last man
standing. My friend Gene always did really good.
But
the main attraction was each day, 3 times a day, you’d go to the coral
and order your horse. The rangers would bring it or they’d give you a
horse at random, then usually by platform they’d help you mount. Once on,
you walk the horses to water then you wait. Once everybody is established, you
walk the horses up this hill deep into the woods. There might me 125 of us.
Then the rangers divide you by trails, the slow trail which is miles and miles
at walking pace, into valleys, across streams, meadows, woods and forest.
It’s a 3 hour trek. Then you have the medium trail where most of the time
you trot along. Then the fast rail- you fly, full gallop, jumping over lags,
through the mud. You got to imagine, all ages. 11 year olds, flying past you,
racing.
Well,
sometimes as you wait for all the riders to get established, the horses act up.
They might rear up, or collapse and roll over to get you off, or bite other
horses, or press you into other horses, or crap, or swat you with the tail.
Well once this lady was pinned, a stallion mounted a mare while she was on the
mare. She was sandwiched and we were like wow! As rangers rushed over.
And
once my mom got a horse named Psycho. It took her on the slow trail, then
decided to go crazy. It ran towards overhanging branches to knock her off. My
mom was so scared she fainted after peeing on herself right before she was
thrown into the mud.
I
love these ranches. I want to take you once day. It would be a blast. Just
taking you everywhere.
Hey,
where are 5 places you’d really love to explore? Hey, I got this guy
named Rob, I expect to hear from him next Tuesday. He’s a college grad,
finance major and physics. He may be coming in to do the trading. There’s
an oil play, gold and currency play. As I work things out, I’ll let you
know.
Love ya.
Lancelot (your black knight)
# 4
My
Latina moonlight,
I
got this article about a European couple on Lake Aasee. An unlikely couple, but
it shows how love can blossom anywhere.
There
is a black swan in love with a two-man swan shaped pedal boat. Petra is a love
struck female swan that is happily following behind this big plastic boat and
they are inseparable.
As
you know, swans are always in pairs and they mate for life. So she found her
soul mate. As last winter approached, they wanted to take the boat out of the
water and Petra carried on so much, honking and crying, that the government
decided to finance their relocation to a zoo. During the relocation, she
followed her swan boat along the canal linking the lake with the zoo pond.
Whatever the swan wants she gets.
They
are local celebrities, as people come from all over the world to film this
couple. Particular the Japanese, who follow behind this couple. Lots of
wildlife experts introduced single black swan males hoping she’d loose
interest, but nope, she only has eyes for her one and only.
I
think this story is precious.
The
scary part is if Cupid would do that to a duck, what do you think he’d do
to us. Yes, this merely shows that even love unreturned has its rainbow.
I
was always under the opinion that it takes a big heart to love and forgive
those who are hard to love, difficult to love. It’s easy to love the
perfect, the beautiful, the pleasing. But I don’t believe in perfect
people. And it takes some time to learn about people and develop that harmony.
The blending of different selves. Sometimes we are our circumstances, but we
are at the same time not our circumstances. We change as the situation changes.
But you can never point at an individual and say this is the true you, no more
than you can stick your hand in a river and say this is the truest part of a
river. It is all river. All the time.
When
love brings you pleasure, that is love. When love brings you pain, disappointment
and tears- that is love also. Sure I’m mature enough to know love
isn’t merely feelings, since your feelings can change throughout the day,
during breakfast. And as we both know, love isn’t words. Since you can
declare love, make vows and still neglect their needs and treat them poorly.
Love is actually how you behave. It’s what you demonstrate. It’s
what you give, and what you’re willing to do and not do.
But
this is the pregnant question. It’s not about love at all, but how much.
It’s not about trust, but with what? It’s not about sacrifice, but
how far you’re willing to go. It’s not about depth of feelings, but
how long it will last. Think about it. You may give your body, but are you
willing to give your house?
Like
I read about prenuptial agreements. If you divorce she can’t get
anything. I mean, how noble is that? That’s very classy. That poisons the
bond at the start. If you are not willing to surrender anything and everything,
than how much do you really love her or him, or each other? Is it love
according to conditions? Love according to circumstances? I will love you as
long as our circumstances don’t change? A person who does that should be
smacked right out of the church. What then is the purpose of vows?
To
love, to honor and to cherish your mate in good times and in bad. This means
when the storms come and they will come, so will the boredom, foul moods,
possessiveness and jealousy, you are obligated to stick together.
In
sickness and in health, … well this means, if one of you is mangled in a
car accident, you get sick, old and ugly, perhaps you grow warts, or smell, or
loose your teeth and sag all over- you are obligated to stay together.
For
richer or for poorer, … well this means, if you are forced to eat dog
food, or if you have a single slice of bread, you share it. You share each
other’s poverty. You’re willing to walk hand in hand into the
desert to suffer, and if you’re offered a new Eden, apart- you stay with
whom you are obligated to.
To
forsake all others, … well, as you know, there is temptation everywhere.
But your mate comes first. Your man or woman becomes family because they are
part of your heart. You love a life that includes each other. O.k. he’s
not family. He’s not blood. But think about it, a pet is not blood and
you can love a pet. O.k., bad example- but an adopted child isn’t blood
so should you love him/ her less? But to forsake all others simply means not
loving with a divided heart.
My
heart for you wasn’t divided, and I know I also commanded all your love. We
had an obligation, and we had direction. We were running so that we could stand
still. In the end it was us. O.k. Back then I was not smart. I had the fantasy
we could survive any of life’s challenges. People survive things well.
But we could either live in gold beds in glass mansions or we could live on
bread, potatoes and fast food. I was yours and you were mine.
Check
out this story and absorb the point. Since we talked about swans, look at this.
“The
ugly duckling” is about a swan egg that’s hatched among duck eggs.
When she hatches among her brothers and sisters she looks different. They think
she is a very ugly duck. Soon she finds herself persecuted. Nobody wants to
play with her, and her brothers and sisters make fun of her and say mean things.
Her friends treat her so unfairly. She is shunned and dreams of leaving. Then
one day even her mom flies at her and she leaves dejected.
This poor sad thing wanders to a
lonely lake where she holds her head down and cries. One day a group of swans
fly over her head and land on the lake and come closer.
When
they are nice to her, she begins to cry and pushes them away saying how she
shouldn’t be loved since she is an ugly duckling.
How
they laugh, Loida. They explain to her she is not an ugly duck, she is not a
duck at all, but a swan like themselves and destined to be the most beautiful
bird on the lake, so elegant, superior and majestic. The very symbol of love.
She
begins to cry but this time from joy and gratitude.
What is the moral of this story? Well it has been interpreted as a tale
of hope like in Cinderella, or perhaps it’s about potential, or how those
who are disadvantaged get the last laugh, and to be careful who you’re
mean to.
However,
I have my own views. Sometimes your family doesn’t act like a family.
Sometimes your friends don’t act like friends. And although life is a big
puzzle, you will never feel peace, comfort and happiness until you find those
you belong to.
When
you find them, you loose that sense of void, of something is missing. I mean I
have had situations where I was with someone, in a place that was simply
beautiful. And it made me so sad because I was not with the right person.
Have
you ever noticed somebody gives you the wrong gift? That is a sign how a person
does not know you well. They simply don’t know what you would enjoy. You
are not of the same mind. People who really belong to each other are similar.
Your joys don’t bring them pain. Your music doesn’t drive them from
the room. They share in the delights, and adopt your joys. You both grow in the
same direction. You want the same things; you are working for the same things.
It’s wanting to become something so that you’ll have more to give.
It’s not out of lack of peace with oneself or loneliness.
Here’s
a test; in all things ask what’s next. You meet? What’s next? You
have sex? What’s next? You get married? What’s next? Family?
What’s next??? For some this is the end. Or for some they don’t
like what they see- so there is no next. It begins to stagnate, and anything
that stagnates dies. Still water blights. And this produces a rebellion. To
other worlds, other arms. People want vibrancy and life, not a dead love, not a
dead job, not a dead life. A shark must keep swimming or it sinks. A
relationship that stops growing, that stops asking what’s next and has no
part, dies. And I don’t care how much you love someone; there is also a
practical aspect. Tire of pleasing and pleasuring each other, or let conversation
run low, or loose that sense of direction, or ignore each others needs, stop
learning or sharing what you learn- and your relationship is doomed.
The
truth is I delighted in your company. You were my best friend and I
couldn’t keep away from you. You never refused a simple need. You kept me
pleasured. Hey remember the dude? Well he’s a best friend, we can’t
work together. I know how I am. You know how I am, but we’re wonderful
friends if you can eliminate other aspects.
There
are certain things people are not good at. It’s hard to accept. It
doesn’t mean we are failures, it just means I’m good in sports and
not the cello. And you can’t swim the entire ocean no matter how much
you’d like to. So why kick a turtle or oneself, because the turtle is a
turtle and not a jaguar. I think time puts everything in perspective.
But
I’ll tell you a secret. The secret is not really a secret. It’s two
things: persistence and finding out how. The world belongs to those who find
out how. You’d have the perfect life; you’d live in mansions- if
you knew how. You’d write that great American novel- if you knew how.
You’d have the perfect job- if you knew how. Your love life would be
perfect- if you knew how. That is the magic. That is solving the puzzle;
it’s finding the way. It’s struggle to find out how. When man
wanted to swim the ocean, he built subs and ships. He found a way. But it has
to be important, worth struggling for, and the thing that keeps you keeping on
is persistence.
Well
I’m going to break my neck to give you the means. After all, you once did
for me. I’ll find the way.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Now
if you want to learn some things, then have a seat if not then ignore this
part.
I
want to talk about bonds. Usually when you hear investment terms, you always
hear stock and bonds. But sadly few people know what a bond is. The bond market
is bigger than the stock market.
When
you go to a bank and try to get a loan, they check you out, they want to know
what the money is for, but more important if you can pay the back. They want to
know how much you make, and if you have a history of paying money back, and
whether you have collateral, and if you can pay interest on what you owe.
Well
when you want to invest money to a company, you buy stock. When you want to
lend money to a company or a government you do that in bonds. So when you want
to play banker, you deal in bonds. A bond is an IOU.
When
you buy a bond, you are lending a company 1,000 dollar.
And
what you want to know is when you’ll be paid back your 1,000 dollars.
1) A bond has a maturity, and that date tells you when you get paid.
Example:
Merrill Lynch Inc. May
16th, 2016 (maturity)
This
the date the bond matures.
Now
you loan money you also expect to receive interest. Well each year or twice a
year, or four times a year, you receive interest on the bond you bought (money
you lent). That interest rate is called a coupon.
Example coupon maturity
At
& t Inc. 6.1
This
means you get 6.1% on your investment and it’s due (what you lent on
Sept. 15, 2034). Now if the interest payment is due annually, then you get 60
dollars every year until Sept. 2034. Then you get your 1000 dollars.
Last
aspect of a bond (well last important aspect) is the price. You may see the
following.
Example coupon maturity price
Time
Warner 6.75 April 5,2011 103
Or
JP
Morgan Chase 5.1 Sept. 15, 2014 95.2
In
both examples it looks like the price of the bond is 103 dollars and 95
dollars. Well, in truth you’d have to ad a zero. So the price of Time
Warner is $1,300, and JP Morgan Chase is $952.
But what does this mean; doesn’t a
bond cost 1000 dollars? Not exactly, but that’s what you’ll get
back when it matures. So it’s like you are buying 1,000 dollars for 1,030
dollars in Time Warner, and 1,000 dollars for 952 dollars in JP
Morgan. Remember your profit comes from that interest rate you get as well
as if the cost is less than 1000.
O.k.
Now each day, just like in stock, the price of bonds move. Example: one week JP
Morgan might cost 700 dollars, and a week later it cost 1030 dollars. In this
example, if you traded bonds, you’d make a 330 dollars profit per bond
you own if you bought & sold it. (Not waiting for it to mature.)
Also
you could buy today Time Warner for $1,300, and sell it next week at $400, a
loss of $570 per bond.
So
people are buying bonds just as they do stocks. But here is the thing. Bond
traders as a rule are more knowledgeable than dumb money stock traders. Bond
dealers are more powerful than stock traders and usually know what they are
doing. When you buy bonds, you are putting a company in debt.
That interest rate they pay you is fixed
in stone; it can change, so bonds are actually called fixed dept. Dealing in
bonds is a safe investment, because bond people get paid first. If a company
makes money, before it gives out money to stockholders, it must pay the bond
people. (Their interest payment.) If it cannot, the bond people send the company
onto bankruptcy court and force the company to liquidate itself in order to
give the bond people back their money. Stock people usually get nothing. Stock
people are usually surprised when their stocks loose their value or go to zero,
not even knowing that bond people can liquidate their company. Stock people
don’t even know bond people exist.
So
because bond people are like banks, they keep an eye on how much the company is
making. When the company is in trouble, they are the first to know, and as they
sell bonds that can precede a stock fall. So by knowing what bonds are doing,
you can get a grasp on what stocks are doing.
Also
bonds are math and deeply influenced by interest rates. Let me explain. Keep
the following principle in mind. Everybody wants the highest return on his or
her investment. O.k. here we go. Let’s say you have 1,000 dollars. If you
put it in a bank account you’ll get 3% or 30 dollars returned. If you buy
a bond you might get 6% or a 60-dollar return. So because you get more money
buying bonds, money will leave banks and find its way into the bond world since
you get more.
Now
let’s say the banks don’t like that and the Federal Reserve
Control Bank tells all banks to raise the interest rates to 10%. Then all
the money will leave bonds that are paying only 6% and go into banks where
they’ll get a higher return.
So
how can bonds compete? They have fixed rates of interest. They can’t
raise their interest rates to 10% or more. So instead, they’ll make their
bond cheaper to buy. They say instead of you paying 1000 dollars, only pay 500
dollars. So the bond drops in value. The bond is cheaper for you to buy, which
is good, unless you originally bought the bond at 1000 dollars, then you could
loose ½ your money overnight.
So
rising interest rates causes bond prices to fall.
The
converse is also true, falling interest rates cause bond prices to raise.
Because
if the fed cuts interest rates, then bonds don’t have to compete with
banks, so they can charge more for their bonds. So bond prices rise. They want
you to give them 1000 dollars or more, and they’ll give it back later.
Lastly,
there are 3 types of bonds:
1) Mortgage (you are lending to homeowners)
2) Treasuries (you are lending to cities and governments. The safest bonds
because they can raise taxes or print money to pay you back).
3) Corporate bonds (these are bonds to companies who need money to conduct
their business).
Later
I’ll teach you some strategies to make a killing.
Your
Lancelot
# 3
Hello Spanish magician,
I found some music lyrics. O.k.
It’s not John Secada, that we used to listen to, but they are good
songs. There were so many. Don’t you love how music transports you, not
only can it addict you to music you didn’t initially like, but it can
affect your moods, playing to your senses that can swell your heart, make you
feel sorrow, even make you dance.
I was such a big fan of Roxy
Music and I would play this song all the time.
I could show you, in a
word… if I wanted to. A window
on a world…with a lovely view.
From closed up inside, a single
room… With an open book aside.
Like you read in school.
It’s so easy… believe
me. When you need fun. I do anything, to turn… you on.
Anything
to turn you on.
Is it raining in New York on 5th
Avenue? And off Broadway, after dark,
love the lights don’t you?
I could walk you through the
park… if you’re feeling blue or whatever.
Spring, summer, whatever…
winter through fall… I’ll do anything, to turn… you on.
I could leave you, as you were, if I
wanted to. Then I wonder is it fair,
now you’re on your own-
Who
cares about you?
Except me. God help me. When things
go wrong… I’ll do anything, to turn… you on.
Must phone me, you know me. When things go wrong… I’ll do
anything to turn you on.
-
Roxy Music
To
Turn You On
I love this song. I’d also play Gabrielle.
Do you faintly remember “Second chance”?
I always thought that I knew it all… but I knew
nothing.
Couldn’t see I was destined to fall before it
was too late.
I wanted a second chance, but you won’t take me
back… I’m full of regrets…
If
you asked me back, baby I’d say yes.
A second chance, but you won’t take me
back… I’m full of regrets.
If
you asked me back, baby I’d say yes.
I paid the price ‘cos now you’re gone from
my life, and I have nothing.
So caught in myself cared for no -one else now
you’ve slipped away.
I wanted a second chance, but you won’t take me
back… I’m full of regrets…
If
you asked me back, baby I’d say yes.
Oh there were so many songs. A lot of 80’s
music. OMD, ABC, Spandau Ballet, B-52s, Gloria
Estefan, Tears For Fears, The Cure, just so much… Do
you ever listen to this stuff? I was also into Wilson Phillips and
listened to it all the time.
If you never plan to come out of your shell,
you’re never gonna get well.
I understand your reasons not to. And I’m afraid
of it too… But can I even talk to you again?
Oh part of me wants to call you up, and talk to you
like a friend.
And there’s a part of me that wants to shut you
out and never see your face again.
Chorus:
How can we be enemies when we’re only flesh and blood?
What does it
take to make your heart bleed, tell me aren’t we enough?
You can get
through, there’s nothing stopping you from getting to us.
No one can
take a way the fact were only… flesh and blood.
For years I’ve been following
your case, it’s the only time I see your face.
And we’ve learned to live
without you.
Who you don’t know is who
you’re afraid of… And were afraid of you too.
But will we ever talk to you again?
How can we be enemies when we’re only
flesh and blood?
What does it
take to make your heart bleed, tell me aren’t we enough?
You can get
through, there’s nothing stopping you from getting to us.
No one can take a way the fact were only… flesh and
blood.
I want to make you laugh, I want a
chance to know you better.
I want to hear you sing beside me
now… flesh and blood.
I’m part of you… and I miss you. A song
for you… for only you.
This is so incredibly beautiful, so heavenly.
Loida, I was so happy about you. O.k. I’m not
good when stressed. But we were bound, like a marriage. I was the first person
to make you sigh that way. To totally taste you. I totally knew you. And I remember
a lot of dreams you made me dream. Magic dreams. My magician.
So have you flown away above some cloud to a mystical
Shangri-la? You know for some people the time of miracles is over. They are old
before their time. There are always new miracles.
Hey, check out the message behind this story. It
speaks to me so deeply that I would like to share it with you. A few years ago
I was given a book called “The Alchemist”.
A young shepherd boy wakes from a dream telling him his treasure
will be found in Egypt. So he takes his sheep into town and sees a gypsy who
interprets his dream. She tells him to go to Egypt and return to tell her what
he finds. He then bumps into what seems like a king that tells him when a
person attempts to follow his dream to his personal destiny how the universe
conspires to help along the way.
He sells his sheep and boards a ship o Egypt. He
cannot speak the language but finds a man who will translate for him. The man
tells him he will arrange a camel ride into the desert and takes his money and
vanishes. The young shepherd is so hurt, disappointed and angry. He no longer
has sheep; he’s in a new country without money and can’t even
understand the language. So he wanders around up a hill into a store that sells
crystal glasses. He wants to ask for help but being shy browses around, and
people so curious to look at this foreigner follow into the store and buy
crystal glasses. The owner who hasn’t had customers in a long time,
thinks this shepherd boy is good luck and begs hire him. The boy only planning
to stay until he makes enough to return home, stays a few years and learns the
language, and preparing a delicious foreign tea, he soon has people venturing
from the bottom of the hill to drink his delicious tea in beautiful glasses. Soon
he becomes dazzling wealthy and an accomplished businessman. After seeing
someone who looks like that king, he continues to follow his destiny and
arranges a caravan across the desert. Traveling across the desert, he meets an
Englishman who seeks an alchemist who will show him how to turn lead into gold.
When they reach an oasis, the Englishman goes searching while the shepherd boy
meets a beautiful girl who’s the daughter of the tribe leader. After
spending time with her, they marry and her father explains to him the politics
of war. When he shares his dream with her, she tells him to go and find his
treasure in Egypt while she waits for him as desert women do.
He bumps into the Englishman who met the Alchemist as
he begs for the magical secret of turning lead into gold. The Alchemist asks,
“Have you tried to do it? Yes? Well keep trying until you achieve
it.”
The Englishman
is so disappointed because he didn’t learn anything. The Alchemist asks
to accompany the shepherd on his task. As they travel, the Alchemist shows him
how to master the desert, looking for birds, which means water, etc. Soon they
are attacked and the shepherd proves to be an able warrior. They are attacked
again and they surrender and are ransomed when the shepherd boy trades gold (he
is wealthy) for their lives. He then travels to the pyramids and digs and
doesn’t find anything, becoming an archeologist in the process. When he
does find treasure, he is beaten and robbed.
He wonders why he ventured the
desert in the first place.
At that moment he figures out the
Alchemist’s secret of how to turn lead into gold.
You see Loida
everything has a higher destiny, wants a higher destiny. He was lonely shepherd
boy and due to his journey he learned a new language, saw a new world, became a
businessman and very rich. He mastered a desert, became a warrior, even married
a beautiful girl. He became so much more. He was the lead that turned into gold. It was the Journey, with all the
painful betrayals, disappointments and evils that made him more colorful and
brilliant.
The story ends with him racing back
to his wife who is waiting.
I don’t think people have the ability to wait. I
don’t think people have the power to love. I am not sure if I told you
about this. Did I ever tell you about the lady on the bench? I am sure I did.
When I was 9 yrs, riding a bike with my mom, I saw this woman sitting on a park
bench. She was sitting overlooking a pong, feeding the birds breadcrumbs. No
big deal. Well, the next time I came by she was sitting in the same spot. Over
the years I saw her, she wasn’t dirty, I think she came in the morning
and left before it got dark. But there she was, always there, always looking
over the water. Loida, I saw her sitting in the rain and in the snow and heat.
So painful to see. So one day I told my friends I was going to sit down and ask
her why she was there. I did. And listen to what she told me. She looked at me
with tears in her eyes and said her lover told her to wait for him. She said
she was in so much pain, but she missed him, it did hurt her so much but she
didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t move
on. She needed him so much; she loved him. She loved him.
Yes I know she’s stupid, right? You wouldn’t wait.
But you didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t see a love so strong that
time couldn’t exhaust it, a love so powerful that distance couldn’t
dim it. It survived, the doubts, the storms, and the pain. To me it proved it
was the strongest force on earth. However, even that isn’t a message.
Everybody can find so many reasons, so many justifications of why a person should leave, but they should look for
more reasons of why it’s worth to struggle to stay together. That was the
message of her actions.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Well, in my next letter I’m going to begin running
commentary on the market place as well as teach you everything about stocks,
bonds, options and futures. I’ll give you mastery, and many methods and
systems. I’m really reluctant about placing them in this public forum.
This is violating the secrets of the temple. Think about this. Look at ancient
Egypt; they had sun gods, war gods, and so many idols. You can see the damn
thing in Greece with Athena, Aphrodite, etc., and it even extended to Rome and
most countries on earth. What accounts for so many gods for hundreds of years?
Why? Because the priest and astrologers were always next to the throne. Joseph
out the bible and many others. The knew the secret. See the priest knew
science. Religion is anti science. The secret was 365. By watching the stars,
you could record and understand the 365
cycle. Don’t forget pre-modern man lived in ignorance of the calendar.
Armed with the seasonal knowledge you could know when the Nile would flood, you
could predict when the wheat would bloom, when the rain season would come or
when droughts were likely. A priest could make these predictions and attribute
them to their gods, who the priest represented.
My point is knowledge has
always been guarded. Knowledge of the markets can place you about mortal man.
It is the greatest transfer of wealth devised by man. Here you cannot only make
millions very quickly but billions. In certain areas knowledge is power.
Aren’t we fighting wars right now to keep knowledge of certain
technologies out of enemies hands?
Money making is serious. And everybody is looking for methods.
And if enough people get knowledge of a good method, that method stops working.
A few years ago there was a market pattern where if any
stock were down 4 days in a row, on the 5th day it would rise. That
pattern doesn’t exist anymore because everybody knows it. The point is
developing systems to exploit pattern that sometimes appear.
In upcoming letters I’ll be breaking down the dynamics of
various systems, but first I want to get you familiar with asset classes,
stocks, bonds and futures, so you know what they are and how they work and
their relationship to each other. I’m a pretty good teacher, trust me,
I’ve been explaining relationships to bankers recently.
Next letter, I’ll start you off with bonds. But right now
I just want you to be aware, a stock doesn’t have to rise to make money,
it can even fall and you’ll make money. There is a group of investors
called bears. The public is never a bear. A bear is usually a professional who
takes the opposite side of your trade. Remember if you are buying, then
somebody is selling, and if you’re selling, somebody might be buying.
Most likely you will be on the wrong side destined to loose
money. So you got to train
yourself to do the opposite of what feels right. The public must loose. They
always loose, so they are always wrong.
Wall Street is war. It is fought between 2 groups of
people. The bulls (who profit when their investment rises in value) and bears (who
profit when their goes down on value). Bears are few. They are rare. They are
usually misunderstood and they are feared. Companies fear them and governments
fear them.
What they do is almost impossible to a novice to
understand. They sell stock short. Say what? They borrow, they sell,
then buy and give it back. Understand? Nope. Exactly. That’s why there
are so few bears.
First let me try to explain a concept. What I’m
explaining is not what bears do. But it will give you an idea of how something
could be done.
Ready? O.k. Say you don’t have any money. Say you
also want to buy IBM that is selling at 90 dollars a share. But you
won’t have money until next week. So you make an agreement with
me. You want to lock in the 90 dollars price now, and you’ll buy the
stock next week for 90 dollars.
Do you follow so far? Read this again.
Now let’s say you expect the
stock to rise to 100 dollars by next week. So by locking in the price at 90,
when the price does rise to 100 dollars next week, you can buy at 90 and
immediately sell it for 100 and make a 10-dollar profit.
Do you follow?
Now here we are. I am a bear. I agree to sell you that
stock next week for 90 dollars. Now while you are secretly hoping for the price
to rise, I am secretly hoping for the price to fall.
Think about it.
If the price falls to 60 dollars, I can buy it for
60 and sell it to you for 90 and pocket 30 dollars. The more it falls the more
I make. If it fell to zero, I could buy it for 1 cent and sell it to you for 90
and you must buy it. Hell, I can even help it along spreading nasty rumors
about the company such as the CEO is stealing or a lawsuit is coming. I want to
cause panic so people bail out of the stock and dump it driving the stock price
down.
Do you follow? O.k. here is what a bear kind of
does. I am making up an example to give you a visual picture.
Most people buy stock, hold it for years and forget
about them. Those stocks live at the bank or in your broker’s account.
What you don’t know is that bankers lend them out. You don’t pay
attention to them anyway.
Say
you have 1 million shares of IBM at 90 dollars each (90 million worth). As a
bear I sniff them out. I tell your bank to lend them out to me for 7 days.
I give the bank 30 thousand.
Now I take your 1 million shares and sell them and
pocket 90 million dollars.
2) Next I begin a rumor and create a panic as people
dump their stock.
3) Let’s say the price drops to 70 dollars a
share.
4) Now using my 90 million dollar profit, I buy 1
million shares at 70 dollars each or 70 million
worth.
5) I pocket 20 million dollars. (90 million -70
million)
6) I return you 1
million shares. It goes to the bank in your account and you never know they
were rented out. All you know is that your 90-dollar stock dropped to 70
dollars.
Well, remember, it takes 20 years to grow a forest and
it can be destroyed in 20 hours and a match. Stocks collapse or fall faster
than they rise. So bears make money faster.
Well
got to go. More in a few days.
Your
Lancelot
# 2
Hi
again,
So
what’s new about you girl? What about you is different? How do you now
measure life? Is greatness still possible? I guess the question really comes
down to how greatness is measured. Being a decent human being could be
considered great. Writing a life changing novel or a musical score that is
timeless could be considered great. Do people become great by accident or
design?
A
few years ago I saw something so compelling that it changed me. There was an
ironman event that took place in Hawaii. By far it is the most grueling of all
competitions. It’s a race that does not discriminate. You have to swim 5
miles across the ocean to reach land, then you must get in a bike and ride 60
miles, then you get off your bike and run 40 miles. The competition begins at
dawn because it is an all day and night competition. And the people who enter
are shocking, the young, the old, the fit and the not so fit, men and women.
Well,
there was this old man; he was pretty fit, in his late 50’s. He got into
the water at dawn and he had a younger brother that was paralyzed from the neck
down, who had spent his entire life in a wheelchair. He was lowered into the
ocean and placed in a tire tube. This old man with one arm pushed him along the
5 miles and everybody was amazed. When they emerged from the water, he picked
his brother up and carried him to a bike and strapped him to the front. They
were not in first place, but they weren’t last either. Then they began
that grueling journey, across lava rock, up steep hills, and across the
wastelands of Hawaii. Then he carried his brother and placed him in a stroller
and pushed him at a remarkably fast pace. It was night when the first ironmen
and –women began crossing the finish line. Some people came across and
collapsed, others literally crawled over the line. The crowds were so big, when
everybody came across the finish line it was to thundering applause. One after
another, but strangely nobody went home, everybody including the participants
were waiting, looking into the darkness. Then out of the darkness came this man
running pushing the stroller, and when he crossed the line, people exploded.
People were crying. So many camera flashes exploding. He unbuckled his brother
and lifted him up, and everybody sprayed him with champagne, and this brother
who suffered a lifetime of neglect understood what it felt like to be a
champion, and the first place winner ran up to the both and gave the trophy to
the little brother.
Then
the T.V. screen went black and there were two tiny words that appeared:
I
can!
Then
I realized this is the meaning of sublime. I do know elevated, and know what
that means but never saw a human example of sublime.
Have
you ever thought of and explored the dynamic of a hero? When you think of it, a
hero is somebody whose instinct of self-preservation is suspended. Most people
are sadly pragmatic and place their own interest and advantage over all things.
But to be a hero there is no care or caution. Well there is caring, but
it’s for others. This can be called self-sacrifice, or indifference to
the well being of oneself. Or even a devotion to a cause. This person
overflows. Now I’m not sure you can call somebody who acts heroic before
witnesses. Many people do step up when called to do it. I mean anybody can be
aroused to aid a despairing one. But who are you when nobody is watching? Would
they walk on, pass by because they are not in the mood or don’t know what
to do. Think about this, when a baby alligator cries his mother comes running
and this isn’t an exclusive instinct for reptiles. I think this is
partially the reason why all babies have that remarkable cuteness of big eyes,
wailing, fragile and helplessness, because it arouse the instinct to protect. I
am sure you have seen babies pull on dog tails, and the mean dog is pleading
with his eyes, because he knows what could happen.
Speaking
of dogs and babies. The world has its share of silent and mistreated heroes,
and unknown heroes. What if a senator on Jan. 2001 passed a bill to have all
cockpit doors bulletproof? How much disaster could he prevent? But who would
know? But is he a hero no less? And regarding mistreated heroes, let me provide
an illustration. There is a story of a man who left his dog to guard his infant
in a crib, while he went on hunting. When he returns he finds the front door
open, pools of blood, furniture ripped apart, the baby carriage flipped over
and move blood. The dog is sitting there, blood on his jaws, wagging his tail.
The man shoots the dog and the dog falls on his side, still wagging its tail.
Then the man hears the baby crying and sees the dead wolf.
Yes
I know, you don’t even have to say it; I understand what you’re
thinking all too well. I just wanted you to know that I understand it can take
awhile to understand heroes, and even love. You were the whole world to me. I
wanted you to need me as much as I needed you. I saw how you gave. I knew how
you loved.
Some
years ago I was given a children’s book. It has drawing narrating this
tiny story. But it’s so powerful; it’s a parable of all time. It
has impact on so many levels; I don’t even know how to begin to describe
it. It’s called “the giving
tree” by Silverstein (I’m not sure of his first name). It says:
Once upon a time there was a little boy and he loved a
tree, and there was a tree that loved a little boy. (It shows a little boy
hugging a tree). Every day the boy went into the forest and collects her
leaves, made a crown and played king of the forest. Or he would swing from her
branches, when he got hungry he’d pluck beautiful apples and when he was
tired from playing he’d sleep in her shade. He was happy and the tree was
happy.
Time passed and the next time he
came around he was tall and handsome and stylish. As he carved a girl’s
name into her trunk, she said “Come boy, come eat some apples, come swing
from my branches, come play and fall asleep in my shade and be happy.”
The boy said, “I don’t
want to swing from your branches, I want to go on dates but I don’t have
any money, can you give me money?”
The
tree then said “I don’t have money, but come and collect my apples,
take them to the market, sell them and you’ll have money and then
you’ll be happy.” He did this and the tree was happy…
More time passed, and one day the
boy came around holding a briefcase and dressed in a suit.
The tree was excited “Come
boy, come swing from my branches, come play and lay in the shade and be happy.
“I don’t want to do
these things”, said the boy. “I have a big family, but I need a
house. Can you give me a house?”
The tree said she had no house, she
had no need, the forest was her home. “Come on boy, chop off my branches,
and use them to build your house, then you’ll be happy.”
The boy removed all her branches,
leaving her as a tall pole in the ground. But the tree was happy.
Time went by. The boy returned, he
was fat, had a ballspot and bitter scowl. The tree saw the boy and was overcome
from happiness. “Come boy, come lay in my shade, come play and be
happy.”
“I don’t want to play or
lay down. My family is a mess, my health is bad, and I lost my business. I am
depressed. I just want to go sail away. Can you help me?”
“Sure, but I’m only a
log. Come boy, cut me down, hollow me out and make a boat. Then you can sail
way and be happy.”
He cut her down, leaving a stump,
and the tree was happy, but not totally.
Time passed and the boy returned,
wearing thick glasses, he was wrinkled and used a walking chair. He gave the
tooth a toothless smile.
“Hi boy… It’s so
good to see you again, but I don’t think I have anything else to give to
you. I have no more apples.
“It’s ok, I don’t
have teeth so I wouldn’t be able to eat them.
“I also don’t have
branches you can swing from.”
“I’m too old to climb,
plus my bones hurt.”
“I can’t offer you any
shade, I’m just a lowly stump.”
“I don’t want anything,
I only wanted to come back to the place where I was once so happy. I only want
to sit and think of those days, and be happy.”
“Well”, cried the tree,
“A stump is perfect for sitting. Come sit boy and be happy.”
There was once a time when a boy
loved a tree and a tree loved a boy.
Isn’t
this beautiful? It just chokes me up.
Loida,
I just feel everything in life comes full circle. I believe in that. Perhaps
passing clouds do reappear again and again. People come in and out of each
other’s lives only to reappear time & time again. Love is rekindled,
we bump into people who knew us in 3rd grade, and we go on long journeys only
to come back home again.
Then
again there isn’t a reoccurring circle, perhaps life is about chance
encounters, luck, and even design. Is there such thing as luck? Chance? Well I
think so. But not as you might think. I don’t believe in blowing on dice
for luck, or knocking on wood, or crossing fingers, and certainly not pure
superstition like black cats, walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, Friday
13th. In these examples you do this and bad or good luck follows. I think this
is the wrong way to look at things. Loida, check it out this way, imagine, your
clock goes off, you hit snooze, so you wake up late for work. Because
you’re in a hurry you can’t find your keys, you don’t check
the forecast and get rained on, you miss the bus, the all the lights turn red,
you get fired, can’t pay the rent, your mate leaves, you’re evicted
and…it continues to snowball. In this example, a single misconnect knocks
you off balance and you simply never recover. Imagine playing tennis, they hit
the ball where you are not. You play back the ball is hit short, you go left
and the ball is hit on the right. You’re out of sync. Now think about
when you’re in sync. All the lights turn green as you approach.
Everything connects, it’s like you can do no wrong. It can be constructed
as luck. But in reality, it’s just a question of balance and off balance.
As
you know I don’t watch much T.V.; I like to live rather than be a
spectator. I’d rather live a fantasy than watch a pretend fantasy 6 hours
a night. I hope you are not addicted to television programming. To battle T.V.
you got to ask, “What would I rather be doing?”
Anyway,
regarding balance, I remember the Karate Kid. Yeah sure on the surface the
movie seemed to be about this boy, how he was bullied, how Myogi decided to
teach him by scrubbing floor and waxing cars, and how in the tournament he was
victorious. However, if you really watch it, you’ll understand the point.
As Daniel figures out how waxing cars can teach him how to block, he wants to
learn how to punch, and Myogi stops him saying, “First learn balance.
When balance good, karate good, everything good. When balance bad, kung fu bad,
better just go home.”
Next
he has Daniel balance on a rowboat, then stand in the ocean waves. Then Daniel
watches Myogi on a stump doing a graceful crane style jump on one leg. When
Myogi sees a picture of Daniel’s love interest, he tells him to go win
her back and find his balance “Remember what I said about balance? Well,
balance is not just for karate. Balance good for the whole life. Find balance
and everything will be better.” When Daniel had his leg broken in the
tournament, he explained to Myogi how he wouldn’t be able to achieve
balance knowing his opponents got the best of him. So his leg was fixed and he
used the famous crane kick to defeat his opponent.
I
think achieving balance can bring peace, in all aspects of life. It helps you
see things so different, and helps soften bad feelings and anguish.
I
so miss our talks. Good talks are so rare. People don’t think deeply
anymore. All that casual chitchat leaves your feeling empty. It’s like
frosting, all fluff and no substance. Look, I’ll write later this week
and tell you more about the investment world and your positions, ok? I hope you
are ok.
Your Lancelot
# 1
One
of my greatest pleasures was reading to you. Over the years I read some epic poems
and virtually all the classic literature. Most epics are always directed
towards some goal, where the hero suffers 1001 dangers towards happiness. There
are some great love stories.
Hugo’s Les Miserables,
Hardy’s Tess D’Urberville, Stendhal’s The Red and
the Black. All these stories are gripping, the passion true to life and
they are bittersweet. But there are a few love stories without peer. They make
the soul sing.
One
love story I think I read to you- if I did not then I should of read it to you-
was Lancelot du Lac. It’s everything I want to say to you. It’s a
parable of how love commands you to transform yourself for another’s
sake. Plus it’s romance at its highest.
Lancelot
was an infant taken by the Lady of the Lake after his parents’ kingdom was
sacked. She raised him, cultivated his abilities, and when he reached 17,
crowned his beauty with white armor and a white train, sending him to
Arthur’s court to be knighted.
She
warned him not to stay longer than a single day under Arthur’s roof. Instead
to go out into the world, seeking the most impossible task, which he might win
renown. At court, he encountered Guinevere and being so shy nearly fainted in
her presence. He was not able to look upon her. Now because Arthur was slow to
knight him, he sought to leave when Guinevere asked him to be her knight. He
was instantly transformed.
Out
of fear of failing in her eyes, he did great deeds solely in her name. He
conquered lands, saved damsels and sent such treasure to Guinevere that
everyone was astounded. Nobody remembered him, least of all Guinevere was so
flattered and curious about why anybody would do so much for her. She sought
him out. Just as she got close, Lancelot was captured and imprisoned in a
dungeon by a love struck princess.
Around
this time, the Christian Sir Galahad assailed Arthur’s land. And learning
that Guinevere could loose her crown, Lancelot begged the princess to free him
for a time, promising to return to her confinement if he was not killed in
battle. He arrived in red armor and looked up at Guinevere who ignored him
because of all the battles taking place. Feeling wounded, he grabbed his sword
and did such deeds that every enemy retreated thinking him bewitched. When
Guinevere began to realize who this knight might be, he was gone. He returned
to his cage as all of Camelot searched for him. Guinevere could not find him.
Galahad
reassembled a few months later with a greater force, and again Lancelot begged
to fight. The Princess would only ransom him on one of the three conditions: to
tell his name (he did not know it), who he loved (he would not say) or if he
would do even greater deeds (he confessed he would if commanded to do so). He
was given all black armor and again looked up at Guinevere who ignored him. The
Princess was there and sent down word commanding him to fight. He grabbed his
sword and rode into the battle with such bearing, all the maidens flew to the
window, and after a quick battle returned, dismounted and looked up at
Guinevere. The Princess realized who he loved and told Guinevere to command him
to defend her kingdom. When Guinevere sent word, he only asked if she would be
watching. He ordered two dozen swords, horses and lances. And began to fight
with such intensity, no matter how many blows he suffered he would not go down,
and he cut everything he hit in half. Men in the field stopped fighting to
watch. Even Galahad stopped to watch and could not comprehend why a man would
fight so hard. He decided not to conquer the land if it risked such a knight might
die. Galahad begged for his friendship and Lancelot agreed only on condition he
surrender his lands to Guinevere. He agreed and the war was over.
When
Galahad pledged himself to Guinevere she begged him for an introduction to the
great knight. After much-complicated maneuvers, it was arranged by a lake. She
got so much pleasure questioning this shy and trembling knight amazed at the
power she had over him. She asked him why he did such silly acts and he said
because he thought it would make him worthy of her friendship. When she
pretended not to believe him to see how much she could upset him, he fainted.
She was his only weakness. They became lovers, and grew so attached, that when
Galahad prepared to take him to distant lands, a war began because she did not
want him to leave, and Galahad had surrendered everything for his friendship
and assistance.
To
me this story is the ultimate expression of love. To love somebody so much that
they’d willing to conquer the world and lay it at someone’s feet.
You once did your best for me; you felt so strongly for me that you were
willing to elevate me so high. And I repaid your love so poorly. Look, I know I
messed up between us, but this is how I’m going to repair it and make
amends. I’m about to lay great wealth at your feet. I spent the last
several years becoming something better. I have spent 15 hour days, every day
without pause studying the markets, understanding all the factors that
influence stocks, bonds, options, currencies, commodities and derivatives, because
sadly to understand anything you have to understand everything. It’s a 3rd
dimensional puzzle that moves as you play, so I had to test strategies, obsess
over economic conditions, and develop mathematical and theoretical values of
thousands of companies and dozens of commodities. I advise and even train
traders and put out extensive material over the web and I’m pretty much
ready to blitz the hell out of the stocks and markets. Starting now. A colossal
fortune. Each week I’m going to be posting information so you can share
in the progress, the set backs, the plays and reasons. Step by uneasy step.
I’m going to hand it over to you. The marketplace is the last bastion
where a rag to riches story can still be engineered. And the commodities market
is the only place where you can make or loose a fortune overnight. If you catch
a bull market in a single commodity, and keep reinvesting your gains quickly
it’s uncommon to run a 4,000-dollar account into 22 million. We’ll
get into this in a moment. I know you originally had an interest in finance and
teaching, so I know you’ll appreciate what I’LL explain. And as I
break things down, you’ll be learning and mastering it.
Look
I want to apologize for letting you down. Don’t let your heart grow black
on my account. You had an aura of such wonder and I don’t want you to
become as hard and cold as a rattlesnake.
Me?
Well I’m kind of Zen, at peace. I accept that in life we are all dealt
our share of tragedies and setbacks. There is so much beyond our control. We
cannot escape things like sorrow and even boredom, but we can control how we
respond to it. I choose enthusiasm. Ever watch children? How they deal with
collisions in life? They fall out a tree, the very next day they are ready
again to take on the day. Music and playtime will send them dancing again.
Nothing carries over. They are full of life and ready to live. By saying this I
want you to know that I don’t hate you. My plight might have helped in
order for maturity to take place. Plus it’s said struggle helps you grow.
I find It’s true that it doesn’t matter how many times you fall
down, what matters is how many times you get up. The same storm that sweeps
away one kind of life, also brings new opportunity.
People
change. You must realize that. Nothing is stable. Time will change all things
dramatically. Life is change. I always tell people to fix their lives, to fix
their relationships. To improve themselves and try to practice what I preach.
If you hear me talking about it, then I’m doing it. What you feel and
believe right now is not the final authority. You don’t see life as you
did at 6 months old, or 6 years old or 16 years old, and you won’t see
life as you do now at 43 years, or when you’re 66 years old. So adopting
the view, than an X must always remain an X and can never be a Y, is an
artificial way of viewing the universe. If anything life is a curve ball.
But
I’ll tell you what sometimes happens. We get stuck. Look around. Look at
everybody. People are stuck in jobs. Jobs that are total drudgery. Total
thieves of time. Jobs that carry you far away from what you rather be doing.
Life is about joy. Or look at relationships. Sure they can answer the need for
safety and loneliness, but when they cease to grow, we naturally rebel against
them also and feel sad and dissatisfied, because they don’t answer our
need for joy. And perhaps the worst of all, we measure life by the pattern of
life. How time is structured throughout the day. How life is divided by
activities. And what gets the largest time dedication. Is it full of dreams,
and a forward motion towards life enriching goals. Or is it wake up. Get ready
for work. Work. Boredom. Lunch. Unstimulating conversations. Home. Eat. A few
conversations. T.V. Bed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Never varying. What’s the
solution? Do what you enjoy. Do what makes you being sing. There are people who
risk all to dance on Broadway. People who took the chance to become movie
stars. People who sacrificed all to write and market legendary novels. Many who
struggle to begin companies. These are not people who look upon their lives and
question Will this go on forever? Or who sit and sweep floors wondering
if an opportunity will fall into their lap.
Here
are two problems. People are way to invested in their everyday. They don’t
seek opportunities. They don’t embrace change. They don’t question
what they’d rather be doing. And their groove becomes forever. We are
good at providing 1,000 excuses to ourselves. We silence imagination.
The
second problem or rather fear is in starting over. Sometimes we rather not
envision a new life. Why? It’s too scary. We are made to crave stability,
right? So why thrust ourselves into the unknown where we may not be prepared.
However I think desire trumps risk. Think of the young starlet who gets off the
Hollywood bus. She doesn’t have a soul in the whole world or anywhere to
go. With a few dollars she is determined to beat the odds and make it. She
embraces chance and opportunities. She washes tables while going on auditions,
because her dream justifies the struggle, her need to change. To transform
herself into an image she could worship. Hell I found out the hard way that
those who wear the shawl might not have the shoulders for the shawl. So I had
to change. Sadly I find others who defeat their journey through low
expectation, a lack of creativity, and comparisons to others. It’s true
the people around you, in your orbit, reflect you. Our closest people are
usually in our social, financial and intellectual class. Like attracts like.
Passion attracts passion. We do a little better or a little worse than those
around us. A psychological water level. They become our model. They may not
have it so good but at least we know they have it. So they’ll forgive you
for not wishing to own a mansion. Or a yacht. Or a blue chip company. Or
becoming a star. This is what keeps us from wanting to be something greater.
It’s only a dream. And sadly dreams are easy to ignore. However do that
and you will loose meaning in your life. You have to become something in order
to have more to share. Without that sense of achievement, there will always be
a void that sex can’t fill, children and relationships can’t fill,
even religion. We were not born to exist like plants, but to fill ourselves
with the joys of the earth. The electrifying conversations that echo within you
and keep you tossing and twisting at night. Feeling such love for a human that
you are terrified and silly. If you are not overcome by the emotion of love,
well you are dying within life and cheating your heart, mind and body.
Each
day we die a thousand little deaths. Disappointments, tragedies, boredom,
stagnation, health issue, age and personal poverties. How do we survive this?
How do we keep our hearts airy and light? How do we keep from daily complaints?
You live! You live to collect fascinating experiences. Go travel. Go listen to
the roar of the lion. Hear the sound of a whale calling on starlit water. Go
see a legendary sunset in Key West or Ecuador. Fall in love everyday. Thank
those who you care about and cared about. Thank those who gave you the
opportunity to feel such an emotion. Even if it was unreturned, even if you
felt deceived. For a taste of that bliss and ecstasy, please deceive me again.
Even love unreturned has its rainbow. Live life with enthusiasm. Accept
everyone. Don’t be someone who can be cheated, or who can’t melt,
who can’t fall down or can’t take chances. It’s all part of
the chapter. You are strong, I am strong. When has a dragon ever perished by a
snakebite, or a small annoyance. What can’t we survive or rise from? Go
out and dance. Go listen to the new band playing down the street. Go around
people who are fun and alive and do not become old before your time. Keep your
heart young, your mind young and you’ll stay beautiful. Sure you can
travel through books, the web, T.V., but also know there is a dynamic that
can’t be embraced by those mediums. There is a wide difference about
reading about a roller coaster, seeing one on T.V., and being one. To feel life
it must be embraced through all the senses.
Look
when we are hurt, we become afraid that we’ll be hurt again. We loose
trust, and we fear life. A walk through a meadow hides snakes. Walking in the
rain gets us struck by lightning. Horseback across a river means we drown. And worst
than fear of life, we can get lazy before life.
By protecting ourselves from fear, we also protect ourselves from joy.
It’s true it confuses the body. The body doesn’t know the
difference between laughter and sorrow. Both rack the body, produce tears,
wrench the stomach, only your mind attaches meaning. An extreme emotion is and
extreme emotion. It changes your temperature, your heart rate. Guard against
one and you guard against all. What seeps in is boredom, a flat line existence
that nothing is worth the effort. Every time you wake up, the strength is
sapped right out of you and you lie back down and fall asleep in the snow. I
feel responsible for your life. You cared about me more than anyone.
Here’s my plan. I am going to keep this letter up for 2 weeks, then twice
a week on Sunday and Wednesday I am going to post a new letter. I’ll
number them and put the newest one in front of the older ones.
Now
to something different that I am very exited to talk to you about. Ready? O.k.
Most people who deal with Wall Street don’t get rich. The majority
actually feeds their money to this casino and looses everything invested.
That’s a fact.
The
stock market actually allows the public an opportunity to double their money.
The majority will never double their money. They would be lucky to gain 20% on
the money invested. But it’s all about 100% returns. Let’s look at
why.
Say
you have 1,000 dollars. If you double your money you will end up with 2,000
dollars. Simple, right? Now if you invest that 2,000 dollars and you double
your money, you end up with 4,000 dollars, right?
Well
if you got 10 returns of 100% (doubling your money) you’d have 1
million dollars if you began with 1,000 dollars.
Example:
1,000 ; 2,000 ; 4,000 ; 8,000 ; 16,000 ; 32,000 ; 64,000 ; 128,000 ; 250,000 ;
500,000 ;
1 million.
If
you started with 250 dollars you’d have to get a compound return of 100%
(12 times) in order to make a million. If you could do this 24 times
you’d have 1 billion dollars. Try it, do the math.
It’s not as easy as it seems,
because the public loves to buy big known companies like Wal-Mart which
cost 41 dollars a share and may move to 56 dollars a share in 1 year. Well, Wal-Mart
would have to rise to 82 dollars to double your money 1 time. Which is unlikely
based on how slow it moves.
Believe
it or not, Wal-Mart and actually all companies are bad, and their stocks
only double or triple under certain events or certain economic times. But few
people ever make the connections. Say there was a mad cow disease scare. Well
that means the public will be scared to eat contaminated beef. This means stock
like McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell will all
collapse. But you got to be able to see how things are interconnected. If
people don’t eat beef they got to eat something, so KFC (yum
brands), Red Lobster (seafood), and pork products will rise in value. So
you’d jump into those companies. And after they rise, you get out with a
profit and quickly invest in Burger King and McDonalds, because
people are not going to stop eating beef forever. So you buy those while low
and ride them up as they recover.
A
current theme you might of wanted to play in the last months would have been fertilizer.
Why? Last year during the summer we had record oil prices. When fuel cost is
that high we tend to look at alternative fuels. Solar technology companies tool
off, but the while world thought they found the solution in ethanol. This is a
product made from corn. They add this to crude to stretch it. Al lot of ethanol
companies came into existence and expanded rapidly. But when you have too many
companies doing the same thing, they eat each others market share and nobody
makes much money. Anyway, this demand for corn pushed corn prices from 2
dollars a bushel to 4 dollars a bushel from last November to February. That
2-dollar increase doesn’t look like much, but in the commodities market
that would of made you millions many times over. We’ll explain that
later.
Now
corn began booming. Now since corn is also used in cattle feed, the price of
cattle goes up also, and so does milk. And it also drives up sugar, since corn
syrup becomes expensive. Farmers all around the world began seeing dollar signs
in their eyes due to global ethanol demand. Everybody becomes a corn farmer.
From Brazil to Mexico, from Africa to Russia, all plant record corn. Well if
they all become corn farmers, then nobody plants cotton, or soybean or wheat.
And these prices shoot based on reduced supply.
So the agriculture commodities market is
hot. So who benefits in the stock market? The company that makes fertilizers
and seeds. If you look at the 52-week high and low of Terra Nitrogen, it rose
from 7 dollars to 141 dollars (look in the newspaper- see it for yourself).
What
does that mean? Well 7 becomes 14 (doubled); 28 becomes 56 (doubled); 56
becomes 112 (doubled), and you have some extra to give you 141.
Well
it doubled 4 times. That turned your 1,000 into 16,000 dollars. If you found 6
more doubles, you would be a millionaire.
Potash
also did well; it is a major supplier of fertilizer. It doubled 3 times.
Another
great economic theme in play as we speak is China. China has hardworking people
with very little rights. Also their currency is artificially low. Since the
people will bust their asses, not sure and need only pennies to survive, that
country has become the sweatshop of the world. As companies open factories,
they also build up Chinese infrastructure and shift over their technology. Now
China is modernizing quickly. They are educating their people and unleashing
government protected corporations. Their stock market rose 150% since Jan. 07.
This means the average company doubled in size & revenue. Right now you can
make a killing in any Chinese related company. Last month Baidu rose
from 200 to 350 or 75% in a month. Look at 3 companies that just came into
existence since Sept.
Vmware Inc. rose from $30 to $125 (it doubled twice). China Arehightechtorial
Eng. rose from 4 dollars to 17 dollars (doubled twice). Hell. China
Digital T.V. just came out Oct. 5th, 07. It rose from 15 dollars
to 60 dollars (doubled twice).
All
Chinese stocks are moving fast.
A
third there is in shipping. Tankers. Why? As you know, we have a huge budget
deficit. We are fighting two wars; we had natural disasters, tax cuts, high
cost social services, and a ton of new government agencies. Money going out, no
money coming in. So we bash down our dollar so that foreigners can come here
and buy our stuff cheaply. Right now Canada’s money is worth more than
ours. When you hear oil prices rising, it is not due to instability in the
Middle East, it’s because our money is loosing value and takes more money
to buy the same amount of oil. Anyway, foreigners rush in to buy our companies,
our resources, our stocks and treasury bonds, and as they move it back out our
country, it goes by sea. So that our export sector is fire hot. TBS
International, Excel Maritime, Diana Shipping and DryShip
have all taken off. DryShip rose from 12 to over 100 dollars a share. Go
to the papers and look at the 52-week high and low. That would have tripled
your money.
If
you noticed, I did not mention Apple or Coca-Cola or Citibank.
Why? Those sectors are out of fashion.
Believe
it or not, stocks are way to easy for me, plus they don’t make money as
fast as if you used options or played futures (commodities).
Like
you are probably aware we had a housing bubble. To get our economy out of the
past tech bubble slump the Fed. Reserve pushed down interest rates (since
you’d rather pay low interest on money you borrow than high interest).
People rushed to banks to get loans to buy homes and open businesses. This
created jobs and made the money flow. Pumping money in the system also causes
inflation. Housing prices rose. More money flowed in. People became
millionaires flipping houses. The government began rate hikes. You had to pay
more money on the money you borrowed. It got so expensive to borrow money,
people stopped. Nobody bought homes or cars on credit. The automotive industry
collapsed, and so did housing. All those defaults fell on banks. They lost
money and tightened qualifications, so it was no longer easy for businesses to
borrow, and now they are stumbling. But as housing fell, so did the price of
lumber since new homes are not being built (there are too many homes on the
market). Lumber is at a 12 year low. But as interest rates come back down, and
housing improves, so will lumber prices. This will be a colossal play.
Commodities
are not like stock. You buy vast amounts of a resource that you will sell at a
future date or stand for delivery of that resource. But you are actually
trading around contracts that give you the right to buy or sell that resource.
And because you are only dealing with a contract, you can finance the purchase
of the contract with as little as 2% of the contract value.
So
if you are buying gold, a contract is for 100 ounces. If the current price of
gold is 700 dollar an ounce, then the contract value is 70,000 dollars (700 x
100 ounces). And that means you can finance it by putting up 2% or $1,400. You
are hoping that gold rises before it’s due; if it does you ca sell it
back to the exchange who might sell it to a jeweler or bank or government, and
you can pocket the difference. You can also profit by making a bet that gold
will fall.
Well,
in limber you are buying 110,000 board feet. Almost 200 miles. You only put up
$700.
If
you are buying corn or wheat or soy, you are buying 5,000 bushels. You only put
up $375.
If
you are buying cattle, you are buying 40,000 lbs.
If
you are buying sugar, you are buying 12,000 lbs or 52 tons.
If
you are buying oil, you are buying 1,000 barrels.
You
can also buy currency, or stock market indexes like the DOW, or treasury bonds.
Due
to the vast amounts you are playing with, when a commodity gains by a penny, it
is big money for you.
Example:
You are buying a contract for 120,000 lbs of sugar. If sugar goes up 1 cent, then
you get 1 cent for every pound. Imagine 120,000 pennies. Well that 1200 dollars
a contract for each 1 cent move. If you were only putting up 600 dollars a
contract, then a 1-cent move would allow you to buy 2 more contracts. This is
called pyramiding. You want to use your gains to buy more and more
contracts. So that you own 10 contracts or 100 contracts or 1000 contracts.
Here’s
a chart. It shows what you would gain based on the price move and how many
contracts you own.
1 cent move $1120 $11,200 $112,000 $560,000 $1,120,000
10 cent move $11,200 $112,000 $1,120,000 $5,600,000 $11,200,000
25 cent move $28,000 $280,000 $2,800,000 $14,000,000 $28,000,000
Now,
commodities are so dangerous because this is also how much you can loose, so
you got to control your risk. If you are wrong you got to dump your position
quick. The price will not go against you if you are right. So you better be
right.
Here’s
a play that is upcoming and one you just missed. Now wheat and corn is the
cheapest commodity that you can trade (with the exception of currency mini
contracts). A full price contract of corn & wheat cost 375 dollars (you can
buy mini contracts for 100 dollars). Think of what this means. If you are only
putting up 2%, then a 2% move in your favor doubles your money. That could
happen in 3 minutes.
Now
since June wheat rose from 5 dollars to 9 dollars. That is a 4-dollar move.
Well, when you buy wheat you are buying 5,000 bushels. A 1-cent move equals 50
dollars or 5,000 pennies. So a 1-dollar move equals 5,000 dollars. And a
4-dollar move equals 20,000 dollars ($5,000 x $4 move). Thus for every 375
dollars invested would of been 20,000 dollars.
Or better if you invested 1,000 dollars on wheat, your 3 contracts would
have given you $ 60,000.
Well
if you used options on futures, you could have magnified that bet where you
would of made
$400,000. Well, this is a missed trade.
Didn’t have at the time someone I trusted to trade it. I have several
now.
But
let’s get back to wheat. That 9-dollar price is not sustainable and it
has to come back down to 6 dollar by Feb. 08. Why? Remember wheat rose because
corn demand created tons of corn farmers. Nobody was left to grow wheat, so it
took off. That is what happened last June until now.
Well
corn is harvested in Oct.-Nov. When all that corn globally hits the market, it
is going to swamp demand and prices will collapse. It’s beginning now. A
lot of corn farmers will go bankrupt. When the corn prices get low, nobody is
going to want to be a corn farmer, so they will look and see how wheat and
soybean are rising like crazy. And not seeing the reason, they are all going to
jump into wheat & soybean, and grow it. Then when harvest season comes,
they are all going to dump their wheat on the market on a global level, and the
price of wheat will collapse. It is that move that will be capitalized on. Yes
you can make a bet on a price decline for the exact same gain. I showed some
people how to do wheat options so the bet should be magnified. In either case
they will turn it over to you. You’re entitled to it. Remember twice a
week you will be updated on everything, plus a kind of personal letter.
I
got to go and just wanted you to know.
Your Lancelot