Packer Goes

So, as I have been saying, not enough people ever read this blog for it to pose much of a problem to anyone who wouldn't like their 'secrets' (hush!) out in the open. Reading stuff here is not, 'being in the open.'

I guess to some extent I stick things in like the slowly burning down house of James Packer, in order to show you that if I say something like stay away from here, or don't fall for this - that you will have enough circumspection and reason to step away from the danger zone - and it might save your life. We're really talking about things as dramatic as that.

You will recall, as far back as 2013, that I suggested there was a sophisticated plan being run by operators from foreign governments to 'take down' James Packer. I remember being very decisive about what was likely to happen in one of the related posts: 'take it to the bank.' Something like that...

http://oldmoneysavoirfaire.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/calling-andy-garcia.html

As you know now, reading this morning's newspapers over your morning coffee, Packer has just stepped down from the board of his casino and hotel group - Crown Resorts - as its Chairman.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/james-packer-steps-down-as-crown-chair-20150812-giy1ip.html

One of the things missing from the revelations made via the Snowden releases into the public arena, is any reference at all to NSA files related to active information about corporations, industry groups - be they the oil or the pharmaceutical groups or others of the same importance - but I assure you such things exist. These groups are also particularly nasty if it comes down to having to protect themselves over something that would really get the public's anger up - and there are a lot of those things. But they manage to keep them secret to a very large extent.

But if I thought there was something truly dangerous that you ought to be apprised of, I would most let you know here, and I would suggest that you took such a warning extremely seriously.

Should You Really Be Here

Do you remember that story that was promoted back in the late Eighties about some famous stock trader, some real Wall Street identity, who left his successful lifestyle behind to become a monk in some cloister where no one spoke much, or more or less, at all.

There's more than one of these stories around, and about than one single person; I believe this kind of thing has happened several times, if not exactly, many times.

I have never been able to comprehend what this was all about, other than to impute some kind of vague but otherwise likely to be underhanded motivation.

Should you be here -
yes, here's your place card

But then I was at this Indian restaurant the other night, and lo and behold there was this guru-type grandfather, grand-uncle figure at a nearby table, who was able to quote the Vedas liberally  - and I can do a bit of that myself, liberally, too, yes, but not in any genuine order or completeness!

And the young doctor nephew, an obvious professional, sporting a nice gold Rolex, innocently opined that it would be nice to be able to gain access to the exceptional medical knowledge in the Vedas, and dispense (pun, ha-ha) with all of the obscure philosophy and cosmology.

And of course I couldn't help myself but spout out something I heard from my family's Tamilian cooks back in the ancient past - a time pretty close to when Krisna himself walked the the earth among us.

Naturally, several bottles of Taltarni later, I had received another great lesson in the Upanishads from an esteemed guru, which basically pointed out that according to the Vedas, at least, the highest (level of) cities in the Underworld - Hell, as it were - possess even more beautiful buildings and surroundings and amenities than evident in Heaven. Here, the master architect Mahamaya, constructs the most amazing architecture for the Naga beings (humanoid cobras who cannot help themselves but to bite and poison anyone around them too long, even their own family and 'friendly' associates). Rakashasas live in opulent palaces, with many wives and consorts, more beautiful by far than any ordinary human females. Material abundance is easily obtained, and pleasure and satisfaction is definitely evident.

What is wealth?

But these places are totally without any form of spiritual dimension whatsoever. They have specious forms, but no genuine ones.

And that of course, begs in my mind - well, what on earth is the 'spiritual dimension' anyway, and what is its benefit?

Now I can't really tell you why this is the case, but again recently, and even now as well, I have cause to be associating with some um, to put it mildly, celebrated types. Celebrities, you might say. And the interesting thing is they are all well aware of the relationship challenges that exist among them, when they get together, each knowing how extraordinarily talented the other is, and how much of a good impression they all desire to make - yet all of them seeing the next one as some kind of a god, so to speak, and thus having unearthly, perhaps unrealistic standards. 

Now the Vedas go into this kind of thing, and whilst explicitly, the Vedas say that in the Underworld's wealthiest cities, cannabis is plied by the maidens there, as well as other drugs, explicitly they also say no drugs are involved in Heaven - but - there is some other concoction, whose ingredients are itemized in Hindu sacred texts but these vary from region to region in the Subcontinent. This 'other' concoction makes the imbibers intoxicated, without which they would not be able to withstand the charisma of all the other members in their close proximity. Further, this concoction cures any disease and illness and prolongs life eternally.

Three things I know for sure:

When you live in a noisy world, and the sounds are just noise, silence becomes like a drug;

When you see that money and riches become empty of emotion, the pursuers of money then become like obsessed and mindless people;

And the third thing is a great secret.

A secret concoction

But I am not doubtful now that intelligent people leave Wall Street for a quieter place. And whilst I personally find the liqueur Chartreuse quite an odd tasting thing, it is in fact - and therefore to be remembered for this - not a beverage, but a medicine. It has the power to make you live forever... 

Ah, but you will need the spiritual dimension to comprehend this fact about it, and so, employ it in the correct way. 

Juxtaposition

A Latin word, from 'iuxta' and 'iungo.' 'Near' and 'joined.'

The juxtaposition of 'beauty.'

Different from the commonplace and fallacious 'argument by association' that we see all too many people in the popular media indulge themselves in, and - dare I say - politicians do it too.

A juxtaposition quickly shows up two contrasting things because of their very nearness, which allows the mind to perceive in one scan, the contrasting qualities.

Two things may at the same time be 'beautiful,' but yet in totally different ways, which I suppose underscores the need to always be careful when using the word 'beauty' and to make sure people are sharing the same definitions when discussing anything in terms of its 'beauty.'

Tom Carson's Serrat Shiraz wins
'Wine Of The Year.'

Today the Australian Wine Expert James Halliday declared his 2015/6 Australian Wine Of The Year, giving it to a Yarra Valley (Victoria) boutique wine - Tom Carson's Serrat Shiraz Viognier, a wine going for the retail price of $40 Australian per bottle, compared with the wine which ran second, the Penfolds Hermitage, at $900 a bottle. 

Some time ago I talked about another Yarra Valley label - the Yarra Ridge Late Harvest Semillon - which I may have said along the lines, something like 'that you would be hard pressed to get anything from France in the modern era anywhere near as good at fifty times the price.'

Or something extreme like that.

Tom Carson is an expert winemaker who took out the Jimmy Watson Gold Medal (for wines) when it was first ever run. But Carson is a tiny, virtually hobby winemaker and his Shiraz Viognier hardly runs to 200 bottles per vintage. 

In a world today where you can visually 'see' that all of the huge prestige and luxury product brand owners are dying a quick death across the whole globe - Louis Vuitton made a colossal mistake going after the Japanese luxury buyer (there isn't one), and thereby alienating the China luxury market, and in any case, the China market hit its own wall just now, and the Germans have no idea about luxury anyway in spite of their sense of quality control - in all practical reality none of the new money billionaires have a single clue about luxury and beauty and quality. That's just a fact. And the pricing tells the tale of the tape in that regard.

You will buy superb luxury for $40.

And you needn't seek out specifically, Tom Carson's products either, necessarily. The Hunter Valley in New South Wales possesses as good wine products. And it is a fact that the oldest still-being-made Port Wine in the world is in South Australia and it is easily one of the most luxurious wines in the world. 

And modern can be beautiful too -
but you have to have a mind to 'get' it.

People, of course, seek to make money by buying something at a relatively low price and then selling it for a much higher price when the market realizes the quality of the item, whatever it is. But the market might never do that for you, even when you buy something of great intrinsic substance. It used to be the case, that the 'financialization' of something - an asset - eliminated the 'aficionado' aspect wherein only those in the know be aware of the true value of a particular 'aficionado' type of thing; information became mobile and fluid and dispersed, and the dollar denominator was easy to grasp as the reflector of something's actual worth.

But when you give money out to idiots, it changes all of that. And we go back to the secretive, whispered, aficionado world of wealth and luxury. Beauty is 'in the eye of the beholder,' but not the intelligent owner - there, it has a standard to meet.  

Beauty In The Midst Of Ruination

I constantly wrestle with whether or not I'm about to be irresponsible here on occasions. Just now I deleted a whole segment that I wrote but that I eventually decided, well hey, it's just not worth talking about any of this stuff. It's all so boring, really.

In short, I may summarize the deleted content by saying: 'you say Vallauris, and I say Puerto Banus...'

Says 'parody Tai Lopez': 'this is my new
Lamborghini - it's fun to drive it in Puerto Banus...'

Put it this way, if you think logically about some stories floated in the media, and by the media, sometimes they just plain don't add up to what they're meant to look like on the surface.

Over the last at least a year I have decided to go down a different path from what most people are treading in open public and even private, but topical, discussions.

To some extent I endorse the innocence of people like Tai Lopez - he's good for kids starting out. 

But I mean, I suppose if there are any readers here who are not that young, and not that naiive any more, they will want some meat and potatoes.

So let's talk gold 'for reals...' There has been a lot written about the matter in recent days, due to the drops in its price from this 'stuck' range of around $1200 - $1,300.

Gold is the physical central point denominator of per unit exchange value for the whole entire economic vista. And that is all it is, or what it is. China quanta of capital values down, the mid-point of all economies also down. 

Gold is not meat and potatoes of 'investment;' it is the cherry on the icing of the dessert.

A woman with substance

Investment is juxtaposition. The picture looks like one thing, and you find a discount on the surface obtaining value and invest there.

Sometimes, the use to an investor - or a buyer - of something, is to yourself alone. Hunter Valley wines are some of the greatest wines in the world today, but not that their prices will suggest it, and nor, necessarily will their future prices show the truth of it in hindsight. No. Propaganda and hype dominate the modern world, and will for some time to come. But substance, the 'meat' so to speak, cannot be the propaganda of anything.

It's an old investor adage - 'buy low, sell high.' But I say 'buy great and hold or use.'

Use is what makes something great.

Yes, power is great in certain contexts, and yes big money gives one power. But power... is force into mechanical balance, and sustained action is the absolute effect, of power.

Sometimes if you don't terminate a small force, which is in perfect mechanical balance, you'll pay a price if you ever need to oppose it later on, once it has cut vast swathes into your cloth.

A friend of mine once opined: 'you can't change it, money and banking and finance are the very fabric of society.' To which I laughed and replied: 'alas that is not the fabric you are looking at, my friend; that is the wing of the moth that has already eaten through the fabric a long time ago!'

And it works all ways. You can cut through the fabric of bankers too...

A prototypical Australian winery/restaurant scene.
King Salman doesn't drink Shiraz.

First you need to know what is great. Bankers have no clue. Neither do politicians, nor does the NSA nor the Israeli government nor even self-radicalized islamists, nor American theatre shooters for that matter...

But you do know what is great. Just don't let other people's hype or propaganda dissuade you from your path. They're all going straight to hell in a hand-basket. They even know it too but what they are doing is addictive. Watch out to step out of their way too. They're all going to be moving around like drunken sailors from here on in.

The Hunter Valley

Hunter Valley wines in Australia are famous for their quality. They are respected as much as the Big Barossa Reds, or the South Australian classics. The Hunter Valley is in New South Wales.

Tyrrell's shiraz -
absolutely glorious

The Australian bushland virtually in any State has a timeless, rather than a 'merely' ancient, feel to it. There is tremendous authenticity about products made in the country regions - and even where modernity has entered into the structures and the lives of people living in those regional 'country' districts, sheer distance and remoteness has served to maintain people's use of locally-available raw materials and traditional craft-skills.

Snow is everywhere in the high mountain areas
of News South Wales right now

At the same time however, it is not until you have witnessed life in such remote places first-hand, that you begin to appreciate that luxury is just plain not an invention of cities, and nor is it limited to Milan or Paris New York. In some peculiar, almost metaphysical way, the Australian Bush and country regions, or the 'Outback,' has more in common with Florence, than San Francisco does or some other similar large and modern city with claims on luxury and style leadership.

And it all has to do with authenticity and genuineness.

Cobb and Co was a great Australian transport company a hundred years ago, which was started by American businessmen partnering with local Australians. Today, the name still adorns products manufactured using traditional standards of quality and materials.

All those 'old rich' bywords of traditional luxury - leather, wood, rabbits felt, brass, and even gold and silver - are still available in products made and used in the Australian Bush lifestyle. And 'lifestyle' remains an authentic word in this respect, because there are many people in Australia who still live it in some part in a true sense - that is, genuinely; without affectation. 

Send something in a leather and gold envelope...

There is absolutely nothing genuine or authentic or stable or certain or reliable about so much of today's world. 

There are some people who know this, but not many say it, probably because they will not be believed. Parts of Australia exists outside of time itself, and in those places, you will find the extreme far distant past alongside the far distant future. The 'reach' of human mind, goes all ways - into the past as well as into the future, and can become lateralized across the ambit of present's multidimensional spectrum. The mind is juxtaposition in its best form. But it is also authentic. Remember this, the human mind is authentic, and real. It is not a fantasy, even though it is fantastical, and it is not to be trifled with by lop-sided weaker minds whose obsessive materialistic grasping nature is the result of innate inadequacy, and not power, strength or resilience. There is a time to be glowing with wealth and riches, and there is a time to Winter down. That is, the great secret of gathering authentic wealth in first place. For a flower that blooms in a day, as soon fades and is gone. A day, is but a short time to the gods and to eternity. Mastering the secrets of Time, is a shamanic ability. But this one simply must do, in order to fully understand the day and age in which we all live right now. 

Lightronix - 'Reach' 

The cost and value of things, is not observed sufficiently closely by too many belonging to today's outward world: time plus effort comes at great cost, while instant gratification has a high value. One of these things is fixed and real, and the other, is a movable matter.

Essential beauty - or the essential quality of beauty - can exist in the juxtaposition of ruin and epiphany.