The Calm Before

These days clever phrases are usually repetitions of earlier inventions from authors whose names and works are lost in the mists of time past. I shall not attribute this one I am about to throw here to the person and place from whence I read it most recently, as I am quite sure I've come across it before somewhere else still...

“The weight of luxury thrills and oppresses with such charm... I felt it tempt, and enflame guilt never before with such grace.”

Of course there is too too much use of the word 'luxury' today. Singapore seems to have an obsession with the word and all the marketeers focussing on anything China are head over heels in love with the word.

Actually the world is on the edge of a complete collapse and a kind of a nervous breakdown. I don't personally go along with all this complaining about the 'elite' or the 'top 1 per cent' controlling everything and some secret cabal running ordinary people's lives. You will presently see that I am quite right. The internet, if it has done anything at all, has certainly given the lie to how smart the fellows 'at the top' are: it is difficult to imagine whether a violent physical act could have done more real damage than the very recent 'simple' webcam recording of ol' Judge William Adams! Maybe there was some thicket of crooks trying to run everything to help themselves to the gravy.

Some kid out of Queensland Australia pushing $540 million through his poker gambling website demonstrates that the early movers are killing a lot of fish – before the big sharks come in.

Speaking of which I have recently been toying with the idea of pinching that kid's market. Anyone interested to get involved should pop an email to me or post a comment here. Seems to me that apart from the strong possibility of a spot of money laundering going on with the kid for some Russian mob interests, he was none too bright with his organisation. I mean, I'll give him a lot of credit for being one of the first to exploit things, but, he was otherwise no genius. It's clearly not illegal for Americans to play online poker; it is illegal for people to steal their money and defraud the revenue services though. Moreover, there is an issue to do with presenting a fair operation to the actual players and not to manipulate things through computer programs – which goes on a lot I fear.

Ah dear, the pressure of extreme knowledge and superb luxury.

You won't find this anywhere else on the net just of the minute: I had a nice little conversation a couple of days ago with the photographic director of a truly excellent 2004 (originally) internal video presentation of the Armani Prive Perfume series – David Bilowus. He worked with producer and artistic director Gilles Scalabre, and Eric Genilier to make this outstanding production. You can still see it on Youtube under 'Armani Prive Perfume 2004 Video Presentation.' He was kind enough to let me know that the music behind the film clip was the theme music to “The Quiet American” by Craig Armstrong and Matt Dunkley. There are a lot of people wishing to know all over the web what the music was. So, there it is for yer. As I said before, these guys know luxury.

Ciao ciao,

Calvin J. Bear

Online Poker and Money Laundering, Again!

Today, I'm going to touch just a little on real money laundering, and an aspect of professional risk-taking that is rarely discussed. In the days when a few oddballs went to actual book libraries, you could still indulge the phrase 'the secret of,' or 'a secret to,' but now, when everyone and everything is on the net in very easy access, anything that was a secret five minutes ago is quickly in the hands of the great unwashed, as well as fourteen year olds with fake ID's and the murky tide of 'realists' and 'sceptics' who have never contributed a single solitary idea of their own in the whole of their miserable lives!

In short, most people already think they either know everything, or can know anything and everything simply by consulting the World Wide Web. And what's most amazing, is that in spite of such conceit, you might suppose not too many would be sucked into online gambling – but no, it's incredibly successful.

And that's where the difficulties lie. Governments tacitly accept certain types of money laundering, where such a thing permits inflows of money from external (non-domestic) sources, and where the continued flow of some of it within the domestic economy attracts normal tax netting through the money multiplier consequences of ordinary domestic money circulation. Thus, when an online poker business starts up, and within a short time claims to be handling tens of millions of dollars and huge numbers of participants, the government would usually just fiddle around and castigate the owners with a soggy newspaper. But then, as soon as the government banking and currency statisticians observe that, hey!, a lot of real people are spending a real hundred bucks each to get involved, suddenly the wild claims about large numbers take on a different complexion. Because they ARE wild claims... ...to begin with. The claims are merely meant to support a money laundering scheme involving very big people behind the froth.

And then suddenly, the little people actually come in and mess everything up. The temptation to take their money and send it into the obscure tunnels of the global financial washing machine, means that suddenly, hundreds of millions of normal circulation of real domestic dollars – leaves the economy. And that, the authorities will never stand for. Thus, real players getting involved in online gambling spells the 'legal' end to the whole thing.

How could they be so silly? I mean, how can the ordinary public be so naiive? Neither you nor I will ever be able to convince them that there is no way to win money playing online poker anywhere at all – because they simply want to believe that you can. They want to have hope in 'something for nothing' and the serendipity of everything 'web,' and things being as easy as online poker seems. Something too about the ability to hide behind a computer screen answers to the fearfulness in people, and yet their cupidity which also exists at the same time.

Okay, let me modify what I said a little. The game that is being played online, is not poker. Poker is about yourself, and other people, not screenshots.

Which leads me to the 'secret' that is no real secret: the public everywhere is incapable or has become incapable generally, of independent thought.

And that is why too, that we are 'in' a so-called world financial or banking 'crisis.' The public has been told to believe, that nations that default on their debt to banks, will cause terrible consequences for everyone. Not true in any sense at all. But it is believed, and the media presses the story each and every day.

Rather than occupy Wall Street, people need to re-occupy their own heads with their own thoughts. A billion people all thinking independently will not all fail at once – but without doubt the entire population relying on the media's ideas and its pre-occupation with the art of failure will assuredly indeed all fail as a single group altogether.

Modern democracy means the Left arguing with the Right about the same idea pushed from elsewhere. It doesn't mean the Left having different ideas to the Right. At the moment, it's all about the same idea - the only idea there is, is that 'there is a financial and/or banking crisis' and there are apparently two sides from which to view that idea.

If you are a smart person you'd better make sure you have some individual and personal ideas beyond this 'fear the crisis' business. Professional risk-taking is about quality thinking. Quality risk-taking is about independent thought. It involves uniquely perceiving the rewards ahead of some determined, planned action. Uniquely. I used that word deliberately. Rarely can you rely on other people's quick signing-up to a really clever idea, but then, really decent-sized rewards are not generally found to go along with common ideas in the hands of a large number of people.

The only think that's risky about quality risk-taking is that it is almost guaranteed to have you ostracised by the crowd. Which is a good thing right now because when the crowd all sink and drown together – which they are about to and will do – you will not be with them.

It's quite clear that neither the media, politicians, nor the public possesses the one true and necessary component and indicator of a potential for quality thinking – imagination.

You can imagine that, for example, online poker will make you money, successfully. But you must extend that imagining into the region of uniqueness for such ideas to start to possess quality. Stylishness risks you little and colours your thinking. Be stylish. It does help.

The Armani Soundtrack

I am happy to tell you, that not much more than about 800 people worldwide read this blog... And that is not because it could not be more, but it is very limited intentionally because I wanted to see how many would get here of their own accord. My own purpose was, at some point, to start to divulge views into a world not popularly known.

Is there such a thing as an absolute hierarchical set of intellectual or aesthetic values? Beyond the apparent arbitrariness of taste, and the influence of monied interests, may there be an ascending set of values across a whole spectrum of human pleasures? I don't say that there is – it isn't evident to me that there is if you go by the fashions that come and go in music or art or literature or film. There appears to be some type of sense of quality or meaningfulness or consistent positive sensatory reaction in audiences, but it is not clear to me that this is particularly sophisticated even though it can be very elaborate.

So let us not say that what I am about to divulge or discuss is at the top. But I will say that it will be sophisticated. Why I chose to keep this blog relatively unheralded, is that I don't appreciate the number of times that whatever I was discussing in my office in Allendale Square next to the Quantum Fund's office here, suddenly turned up seemingly to have come from George Soros. Okay, maybe it was just synergy – I do believe he is a very very bright man. Having said that though, no sooner had I stopped enunciating my own strategies and thoughts on a vast swathe of subjects, than they stopped appearing in the newspapers and in the media in the mouths of others.

'Cross-Reflexivity In Bio-mechanical Nervous Systems Applied To Other Spheres,' drafted in Edith Cowan University under Doctor Thomas W. Odgers' department, turned up as George Soros's by-now famous 'Reflexivity In Markets' theory. The fact that James Wolfenson swept through Cowan once or twice around the same time is of course, just another mere co-incidence.

Have you noticed though, how nothing of any serious note or merit has been advanced in financial markets over recent years? How there is a total lack of creativity? How there is this monolithic megalithic attitude about everything financial? Maybe quite a few more than just me realized what was going on... It isn't a conspiracy theory - there is a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry about it in the United Kngdom right now! Frankly I think that Inquiry is making Rupert Murdoch look like the arrogant fool he always was but had gotten away with things previously.

How on earth is it possible for an investment bank to fear the default of a sovereign debt?? Surely, they can fear falling currencies, but hardly should this be the reason for a catastrophic Euro Zone financial crisis requiring the bailing out by taxpayers worldwide and austerity everywhere...

No I rather think we have at last entered the phase in which those who really can, do, and all others merely appear to do in the media because they control that media. Which at last brings me to divulge my personal tastes in things that idle people like me do. And I know that these things will leave some people cold.

You see, the fact is that when it comes to really big money, some people appear to think there is an absolute hierarchy of taste. I have earlier pointed out my own admiration for Karl Lagerfeld. The enormously wealthy Dubai rulers commissioned Armani to add design elements to eponymous hotels and resorts located there. And what truly brilliant places they are. One needn't actually go there to experience the style values and themes. I recommend you Google-up 'Armani Hotels & Resorts' and merely listen to the soundtrack behind his website to see that these artists understand a thing or two. But I think many people struggle to understand in their gut what is really being said. And I think that from around 800 individuals, perhaps 200 will acount for those who can understand. But then, I take that from the movie Half Moon Street, do I not?

I have sometimes taunted a woman with the statement that I prefer the company of women who are able to deserve ah, ah,ah, mah-ney.

JW/CJB!

I Still Know How...

"Confessions of a Riverboat Gambler." The art of playing Poker is to do with at least two variables and one constant. Firstly, it concerns the performances of other human beings and that is a variable factor. Secondly, it concerns one's own skill at judging a weak hand from a stronger one – and that too is a variable, because being human one's own fineness of judgement must be accepted to fluctuate within ranges and, moreover, it is possible that one also learns more and more over time and therefore becomes continuously relatively better at this element of the game. Therefore in any given game and at any given time of play, these two variable factors can offer at best a 'general expectation' value as to logical outcome. In layman's terms we carelessly explain these relationships in terms of 'chance' or 'luck.' There is chance and luck involved, but there is also such a thing as mathematical tendencies. There is a leaning towards one particular likely event outcome (let's say, 'success') or another ('failure').

But the factor that is most regularly forgotten about as to its relevance and bearing on real outcomes, is that of the stake that is to be played for. Risk is the chance of an outcome times the consequences thereof.

And that is a very important thing to remember. If one could play for a million-dollar outcome, using a tiny bet, multiplied by ascending levels of skill and judgement, one could keep doing it a long time without much personal financial damage. Then, if one could do it with a mathematical leaning towards the possibility of success, this becomes the arena and context in which a professional risk-taker will seek to operate.

This understanding makes investing in stockmarkets of today, not rational to the professional. In spite of all the hooha from large fund managers and the supposed 'wow' factor of the sizes of money they bet, and for all the worth of the credentials they are said to have, the relative outcomes played for are small by ratio. And that automatically eliminates these people from the class of true professional. In the nearest national stock exchange located to where I presently reside, whilst dividends actually paid are very weak, the price times earnings multiple for the top 20 stocks is an average of 8:1. And this approximates the historical lowest ever ratio. Unless the national domestic Money Supply setting is adjusted to increase, one could in the first place certainly not invest for dividends on an annual basis, and nor could one envisage the prospects for capital gains.

But underlying the broad equities and bond exchanges – which is to do with a previously fashionable financialisation of business syndrome – real business goes on. Everyone from accountants to the financial media and governments and their central banks as well as retail banks too, all claim loudly that the levels of activity are lower than during past times, and even that a possible deflationary spiral is afoot. And that of course, is the difference between the professional and the parasites. Parasites must keep their hosts dependently weakened or at least in a permanent state of sufficient enfeeblement so that they cannot rid themselves of those parasites or run away from them. I like therefore that image of the losing gamblers, bust gamblers, or crooked gamblers, being thrown into the murky river as the riverboat wends inexorably onward towards its ultimate destiny of the final shoot-out scene... Stealth in avoiding being seen at all by the parasites is a key. A million dollars must be at stake for the winning. You must play in the game of the financially strong. If you intend to have the winning hand, and you are a professional, you must play the longest odds, not the shortest odds. In other words, you must take on what others think is the worst chance, not the best chance, and be granted the greatest odds. There is a miasma of true mystery about people like me. Because there will always remain some element of doubt in observers' minds as to whether we just guessed right, calculated correctly – or had some other form of inside knowledge. Winning at gambling as a professional, is a magician's trick. That is to say, it involves some magic being achieved. That much I will confess, though only as an entertainment...

Calvin J. Bear

Something You Can Believe In

I played a casino once using a thing called The Reverse Labouchere. Basically, you bet both sides of an even odds-paying roll or spin or throw in ascending and descending units of One. For example: five dollars on Black, five dollars on Red. Black wins, you bet six dollars on Black, four on Red. And so on as the game proceeds. Get it?

You can go on for ages without doing any dough unless Zero comes up lots of times. If you get a run of one colour or the other (going on the Red/Black example) you can pretty much clean up. Anyway, the House noticed what was going on and changed the rules and you have never been able to bet in units of One on an even money outcome ever since.

The moral of this story is that the House doesn't ever play fair and it changes the rules when it starts to lose and knows it is also going to continue to lose.

Same way as New York and Chicago have upped the margin sizes for futures contracts on Precious Metals just now. I see a lot of people talking about the end of the PM bull market. About a 'crash' in Precious Metals... Okay. Maybe. But then why would they feel they had to change the usual rules? Time will tell I guess but it seems mighty strange to me. Meanwhile, sure, all the margin longs are liquidating. Doesn't mean there's a crash though. Means the margin longs are having to liquidate.

Well, you can't believe in the House. You can't believe in the government. You can't believe in Bernanke. You can't believe in Geithner. And they're trying hard to get you not to believe in gold or silver.

I still believe in a lot of things: Louboutins for smart women, A flame-grilled steak, Fast Eddie Felson... A good red wine. I believe a Philly Lawyer can talk a river run straight. And that's going uphill against the downflow of the prevailing current.

Calvin J. Bear