The Byzantine Truth

Part of the attraction of taking part in the activity of modern investing through stock exchanges, is the psychological motivation behind the idea of being able to go to your stock broker’s office, where all the fresh-faced kids out of college or university work, and have them make a cheque out to you when you ‘take profits.’

I always remember old man Geoff Cambridge from my original broker Saw Cambridge and Brannelly, very drunk, very old, still very dapper-looking though, turn to me inside the elevator and say: ‘taking profits young man? Excellent!”

Old Geoff Cambridge, the stock broker,
always reminded me of Wilford Brimley

I think it was just the standard patter he used on anyone after another late lunch.

The stock market Crash of ‘88 was something I personally foresaw and raised a bundle of cash prior to.  And I suppose I have basically never ever looked back since because of my actions at that time - but there is a stark difference in conditions today: there is little circulating cash about the place anywhere. Having the luxury of observing from a safe distance, after having cashed-up, I believe I more easily noticed the moments when circulation problems started to be created in the economy. I say ‘created’ because they were indeed created, rather than having been the result or consequences of economic factors. They were nearly all strictly the effects of specific political acts, which included decisions made in active and deliberate collusion with supposedly politically-independent central banks. BIS (the Bank for International Settlements) policy could have dealt with Hank Paulson’s so-called sub-prime mortgage and banking crisis, but was not only never allowed to, but inch by inch in the years beforehand, its power and structure and meaning was quite deliberately cut down.

Without going into all of that in this article though, let me just state what should be obvious but will likely want to be avoided by most - you cannot expect to trade or invest in exchange-handled stocks and bonds these days, and retain your money; you will lose it. And probably lose it all.

And so when I start to talk about making money - and thus being able to ‘take profits’ - from something to do with exploiting the natural Equation of Exchange leverage available in the circulation function of money in today’s economy, I will not be talking about going anywhere near a stock broking house or typical financial institution. All of these do not, in the first place, have cash that can be released into the domestic circulations…

So, you too might ‘foresee’ another Great Crash now - but then you will not able to access any cash to do anything about it and in any case you also need to be concerned that your counterparty really intends for you to be paid out at all. Criminality, heavy-duty cheating, broad theft, dissembling; that’s what you have on your hands with stock exchanges and their agents now. It’s not safe there. Sure there is a lot of paper capital told of in more ‘tall tales’ than Damon Runyon generated, and there are big sums written about all the time. You won’t see the cash though - there isn’t any. And more to the point, the digital credits are not allowed to go into economy-wide circulation in any case.

Which brings us back to the psychological impediments to a realisation about where the money actually is. You know where it is not, and thus you should resist the temptation to go to those places - but do you? Chat-rooms are still full of talk about stocks and shares and indexes. You might as well be spending time talking about some painting on the wall of the Louvre - the paint is not going to flow off the wall there either and turn into money in your hands even if you know which way the brush stroke was made. Up or down…

Stay away from the Wall.

A real 'Russian Cocktail'

Direct your mind to the foundations.

The foundation of a Russian Cocktail - a true ‘Russian Cocktail’ - is Maraschino liqueur and a brandied cherry. The Italians, soaked a Croatian cherry in brandy liquor to come up with the Maraschino cherry and the Maraschino liqueur is simply spirits made from the natural Croatian cherries including their pits and stems - which adds a slightly almond bitterness.

During the American Prohibition era, Maraschino cherries were banned because of the fact that they were soaked in alcohol.

Besides the Maraschino, a Russian Cocktail has pure grain Russian vodka in it as the main body of it. Crystal clear, ice cold, and with a red velvet heart of fire.

Now you need to understand, that American Maraschino Cherries - are fake. The FDA spells out that their definition of a Maraschino Cherry is this: “a maraschino cherry is regarded as the common or usual name of an article consisting of cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar and packed in a sugar sirup (sic) flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor.”

No it isn’t. Nobody ‘regards it’ this way except the FDA.

And you shouldn’t regard the truth generally either, as being able to be simply or merely asserted absent from an independent and objective test. The truth is crystal clear.

You can see the truth, I promise you, through the glass of a real Russian Cocktail. And if you were holding a Byzantine glass in your hand, in which there was a real Russian Cocktail, you would not only be seeing the truth, you would be actually literally holding it.

Enough said.