Monthly Archives: June 2019

Philosophy, Lifes Lessons

Not Achieving? Consider This

First of all, you are most likely achieving more than you think you are but society’s norms, customs and feeback mechanisms oftentimes communicate negatively. Hence; the conditioning you receive is not necessarily congruent with your output.  Unfortunately, there are also a few who overestimate their contribution as well. Then there’s your government with its officials who think they know who should be bestowed awards based on criteria unbeknownst to those too busy raising children, volunteering modestly, and invigorating their workplace with passion and commitment. Last time I looked, it was a hockey player receiving the Order of Canada. I’m sure she’s a nice lady. 

Here’s the thing. There is much repression in the spirit of those who have over reached with financial responsibility thereby compromising the pursuit of unique latent talent. The kicker is that it’s not just the variable of “keeping up with the Jones’” which has many stymied but also the subliminal familial and social suggestion that you are “not really good enough” or ‘how dare you be adventurous” with career when there are mouths to feed.

Here’s the other thing. You’ll never get yesterday back. It’s gone forever. If you spent yesterday by keeping your biggest aspiration tucked away in that dark closet of your mind, it’s one less day you’ll have available in fertilizing its fruition. You will have a legacy. What will it be?  

Lifestyle, Music

How’s The Guitar Coming Along You Ask?

Well, it’s been about 2 1/2 years since getting serious about guitar. This is my old Fender Gemini III from 1987 which basically sat in storage until 2016. Looking back at the “set up” of the guitar and learning much about the “build characteristics” of acoustic guitars, it’s not surprising that I turned away from learning the instrument so quickly back in 1987. The “action” was “high” meaning that it needed a “truss rod adjustment”. Now I’ve made it easier to play and is a nice complement to my new Yamaha FG800. I’ll let the video do the talking from here on out.

Uncategorized

Options Leaps and Time Value

I write this piece having brushed up on my formal derivatives training from 20 years ago. What are options, leaps, and time value? These are fancy terms associated with an alternative form of investing. One discovers new terminology while venturing out into a potential land mine without due diligence. I went to a weekend seminar last summer to reacquaint myself with options and found the weekend valuable.  It’s a year later, and I put some capital to work. I had successfully recovered my weekend training fees by fulfilling “the required” in the market and submitting proof of my trades.

Margin accounts have authorization levels. You’ll start out by going long on calls and puts only. The closer your “strike price” is to being “in the money”, the more you’ll pay in premium. Obviously less risk entails purchasing calls or puts closer to the market price at inception. 

Then there is time value. The more time until option expiry, the lesser the risk. You start to see the moving parts involved with options. This is why no investment advisor wants you in them. They think you lack the capacity to absorb the variables in placing option trades. So, what are LEAPS? These are options which have a time value of one year plus. You’ve all seen stock charts right. The line graphs move up and down and oftentimes in a pattern. What if you projected that pattern outward while giving yourself lots of “time value” for forgiveness? You are not in options because you’ve been taught that risk is bad. I’m here to say that when you eliminate all risk, you can only expect a meagre return. There is actually an opportunity cost in not at least keeping up to “actual inflation”. Your investment advisor does not want to be proclaimed as a conduit of your options losses. Therefore, you need to direct these investments yourself. However; this would take some time in learning, researching, and acting on your own behalf on your own account. Interested?

Uncategorized

Power of Social Media – Example

I enjoy story lines that develop at the WSOP. What’s that you ask? It’s the World Series of Poker. From late May to early July every year, sixty or so tournaments “unfold” culminating in the “Main Event” which has a $10,000 buy in.  Who can afford that right? Well not many…so “staking” has become a thing. You can put your money on a player and ride his coat tails. This has been done for decades but not formally through a website until recently. 

Then about five years ago, the “poker vlogging” phenomenon emerged. Players started video taping their results from their poker sessions and then posting the footage on Youtube. It became a way to get some hand histories while learning and also take in the Vegas nightlife over the net. 

Fast forward to 2019 with thousands of vlog subscribers now interested in staking their Vegas friend in the main event through access to a web portal in order to execute the deal. You guessed it. The volume of traffic was so overwhelming today that the technology could not cope.

What if your business experienced the same kind of phenomenon because of the following you develop through personal affiliation arising from social media content? Could you “break the internet” too? 

Personal Development

Ever Present Master Class

It’s becoming more common….the “Master Class”. It’s so vain. Don’t get me wrong. I have no difficulty with people posing as experts but these “master classes” are growing “long in the tooth”.

What’s most interesting is that predicates associated with trainings can be out of date in short order due to changing social and economic landscapes.

What appeals to me are “values” and “merit” but not so much “tricks” and “gimmicks”. You see you can’t teach me values and merit. It’s engrained through a history of nurturing from parents, fundamental education, inquisitive proactive learning, and life experience.  Philosophical expression consequently manifests intuition and common sense. You don’t need to put a bible in front of me either to differentiate right from wrong.  I sense these master classes pose as substitutes for the tepidness of an individual to execute on what one already knows but is overly fearful of risk.

Certainly the master class promoters are cognizant of the impact of a “leftist” education on the autonomous will of the individual. Why not just step into the void and patronize with pretention presuming that all are meek and imperceptive of aloofness. Well, I call it out.  

Music

Beach House Stirs

Another band discovered by watching a cover over at Youtube. Thanks Ani Lyn for your cover of “Myth”. The genre is described as “Dream Pop” and is strong medicine for those legitimately in need of an escape. If you’re like me and spend too much time enraptured by musicians dallying in minor keys, you will be delighted by this experienced group. Some youtube commenter has referred to the album “Bloom” and going from one great song to a better one.

Two young scholars came together in Baltimore’s Indie Rock scene and wrote music fervently  only to have a block on the defining of a band name. As you would expect with “Dream Pop”, we’re talking organs, synthesizers and slide guitar with an underlying soft mellow beat. Both Victoria LeGrand and Alex Scally are versatile musicians deploying various instruments. Can one draw a parallel between “Shoe Gaze” and “Dream Pop”? Well, Scally with Beach House employs D flat tuning as does Slowdive.

As I write this piece, I’m listening to “Wishes” from “Bloom”. I’m tellin’ ya…this group is spectacular.  LeGrand has a soothing voice and fans were avid enough in 2016 to suggest that Pitchfork make them the headliners in Chicago. If distant travel beckons, book your ticket to Beach House and a dream theatre by the water.     

Politics

Needle Administration At The Jail House

This is just one more example of how your tax money is wasted. Apparently convicts who have supposedly lost their autonomy get to “shoot up” and possess an injection kit in their cells as authorized by your country’s “Prison Needle Exchange Program” (PNEP). Correctional Services Canada is now mandating that guards facilitate to “shooting gallery” and rightfully the union of guards has said no. “This is not our job”. 

I believe in the humanitarian rights of prisoners and your country unfortunately has ethically abused the duration of time in which they’ve permitted prisoners to be held in solitary confinement. This has been addressed in lieu of the Ashley Smith debacle.. 

However; as is common with wrongs made right from an apologetic landscape of a government over extending rights, there is now this new “PNEP” program that you the taxpayer get to pay for. The policy is not only fiscally irresponsible but it’s detrimental to the health and welfare of convicts. When a convict has lost their liberty, certainly they should lose access to illicit mood altering drugs. 

Economics

What is Shadow Stats?

It’s a newsletter written by John Williams. John received his degree in economics from Dartmouth in 1971. He considers it his duty to help the interested understand street level economic indicators in real terms as opposed to the terms expressed through nuance by government agencies. For example, John will take the unemployment statistic and incorporate variables filtered out unjustifiably by the U.S. government. If somebody is a “discouraged worker” without a job should we then consider them not to be unemployed? No. John believes as you and I do that this government approach is nonsensical. Hence; he infuses the common sense into his analysis when recalculating economic statistics.

He also has enough experience with the numbers to see trends, trend reversals, and anomalies. When a couple of figures travel in line over time but then diverge, you acquire knowledge of your investing landscape. While CNBC is regurgitating tainted data, you can access Mr. Williams through (www.shadowstats.com) and you need not even subscribe. He gives you some links for free on his page.

I’ve just wrapped up listening to his interview with Greg Hunter and his reference to the sustainability of debt along with the consequences of default. What I like best about Mr. Williams is his hopefulness in spite of dismal statistics as well as his humble disposition. Here’s the youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOos-Ae0qGI