A Wealthy Dose of Skepticism

Yes, you guessed it.  That really does look like a lnceathery Alfred Hitchcock http://www.dymaxionweb.com/includes/blocks/newsfeed/images/AH.jpg. 

In fact, it's his death mask.  Hitchcock was a man of many talents and always had that bemused air of a man who knew just how foolish the human drama can be, particularly when the actors begin to imagine they somehow know what the author has in mind for them. Hitchcock actually had a knack for building up the suspense; by layering in quick cuts, focusing the audiences attention on seemingly key details and fogging things with a trail of red herrings, the master of suspense was able to lead us towards the climax without letting on to the real secret, his secret.... things were not going to turn out quite the way we thought.

Hitchcock created a kind of Daliesque clockwork universe.  He used to say that the actual shooting of the film was a kind of bore.  He had already imagined every scene in his mind's storyboard-eye.

At the dymaxionweb we have the habit of following the news every day.  It rolls past us hourly like the pieces of a mosaic settling back into the atmosphere after having been scattered by an immense cataclysm.  The suspense builds:  deficits grow, people starve or get killed, the money printing presses roll at an ever quicker pace (M3 in the US  up 20% in the last three months) jobs are created, oil prices go up and down, house prices bubble, stocks dip, the dollar bumps up.....

This past week we were "entertained"  by tapes of Enron energy traders joyfully manipulating millions of Californians as they worked the levers that drove the prices of energy to obscene heights.  The rolling blackouts they caused resulted in accidents, deaths, company shutdowns and millions of hours and dollars wasted for the benefit of a few inside pockets.  So much the worse, we say, and move on to the next scene projected by the news machine.

Some people will pretend they have it all figured out.  They'll gladly sell you their formula.  Instead, we think of folks like Ivan Boesky, the highly successful arbitrageur. No seasoned trader would need to rely on illegally obtained inside information if the markets worked in predictable ways nor would all those same experts with fool-proof investing schemes sell their secrets so cheaply if those secrets really could beat the markets like clockwork.  No, dear reader, it doesn't work that way.  So the next time you get a hankering about a sure thing and decide to roll the whole wad, think about our Hitch perhaps sitting not too far from the shoulder of the market Gods.

And for all those investors who are planning on a long-term income of 20% a year from the stock market (don't laugh, a recent poll of ordinary investors revealed that as their reasonable expectation), or from any other market they are not manipulating, we acknowledge our admiration and wish them the best of luck. 

Please check out DW-Central at www.dymaxionweb.com for the latest  in contrarianism.
 

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2:14:40 PM    Google It!.

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