Should I stop there?
Okay so Leo Burnett is not with us anymore but he has left a legacy.
Leo had a file in his office labelled 'Corny Language.' He collected words and phrases that he heard people use which he felt had the certain 'corny' touch that people, so he believed - and he was right - were attracted to on a 'common, everyday human level.'
Screenshot capture from "Ingress" |
Leo was responsible for most of the cartoon-style adverts for breakfast cereal and whole vast array of consumer products of the last well, more than fifty years.
Now let us look at what has been making the main news over the last few days - apparently an iPhone game phenomenon called 'Pokemon Go.'
Pokemon is a stupid name from a stupid Japanese kids' cartoon series.
Years and years ago an innovation called 'Ingress' that was designed and produced by the Google-owned game company Niantic was released worldwide and it made a little tiny impact, mostly among what marketers call 'the early adopters.' Ingress is the same as, and better than, Pokemon Go - as far as being an actual 'game' goes. But so what? People cannot handle 'better,' they can only handle 'corny...'
The Fed says - and everyone believes them - that they can produce money out of thin air, and also, that they can make money 'free.' And everyone believes them.
So, if you are a serous professional investor - and most of those who read here are - then it will pay you to continue to note that Rolls Royce the car company, does not chase numbers; it chases those who aggregate money. And such people are few, and rare. Now Ford, on the other hand, or Kelloggs, well they do chase numbers - and they get them too. And so do politicians chase numbers because that's what democracy is all about.
Even Rolls Royce the aircraft engine manufacturers today announced they would be stepping back their output of engines because of the Qatar Air purchasing situation, but that they would still be highly profitable.
Tony the Stock Market Tiger will never Crash, because he is a PVC punching 'doll.' |
When you chase numbers, and your margins are thin, it is easy to forget where your vulnerabilities are... They are in the numbers. So long as the Fed has banks to absorb the bond issues for collateral and liquidity, then it has no problem. But we are actually a long way down the road from banks actually 'making decisions' about the form of their collateral for loan liquidity. They need to use the Fed's bonds and its pricing of money. And that is because of the outlandish size of their obligations - and of the obligations of their clients who create the demand for their money. You see no one will undertake the risk of funding the capital required to meet the on-going debt bill from the past that has carried through to today - not with 'street cash' anyway. There are no retail equity investors. And don't let the media fool you about it; there aren't any.
I would be looking exclusively at small output, small number, real money ventures only, as far as investing is concerned. Everything else, in spite of the unlikelihood of a market Crash this year, is fantasy fiction and it will never return you any profits.