OUT TO LUNCH
Back in the 1970’s, when I was pretending to work in the London financial markets but was, in reality, giving enormous financial support to The Jamaica Wine House just off Cornhill, something called the ‘futures’ market started up. Although the Americans like to take credit for the concept of futures trading it could well be argued that it was the Dutch who are really to blame (as they are for so many other things).
During the great speculative tulip bulb bubble of the early 17th century such was the hysteria and demand for tulip bulbs which could only go up in price that many punters found themselves happily paying for tulip bulb hybrids that either didn’t yet exist or, more likely, would never exist. As history shows, it didn’t end happily.
The Americans can take credit though for the opening of a formal exchange, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, back in the early 1970’s. The idea of futures trading still had to come to London and only in 1982 did the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) open for business; by which time I was safely in South Africa.
Just before I emigrated to SA I was offered a job as a trader in Chicago on the newish futures exchange but a quick check of the weather in Chicago made Johannesburg the obvious choice.
Not many people in the financial markets in London in the 1970’s had a clue what futures were all about and the general public had even less of a clue. So it was very helpful when somebody published this easy to understand explanation.
“Suppose you want to buy futures? It works like this. You agree to buy, at an arbitrary price, at some date in the future, a quantity of stuff you do not want and couldn’t conceivably need, from someone who hasn’t got it, with money that isn’t yours. One party pretends he has the stuff and and another party pretends he needs it at some time in the future and there’s your deal”.
Simple and succinct - so is it any wonder that trading in pork belly futures took off after that?
If we were trading in political futures would we be long or short of South Africa at the moment? And how about Canada (surely a massive short?) and a Europe that the party loving PM of the UK reckons could be on the brink of the biggest conflict since 1945?
Forget the damage caused by storm Eunice and falling trees and just wait until you get a Russian missile slamming into your surround sound home theatre. Of course, it may never happen but that’s what future’s trading is all about.
If we all knew that the price of Brent crude would start pushing $100 a barrel then we would have bought futures in the damn stuff when it was at the year’s low of $62 or thereabouts. The problem is we didn’t know and the only people who were predicting this sort of thing were either conspiracy theorists or futurologists.
So my question to the jury today is…. what is the difference, if any, between a conspiracy theorist and a futurologist? The obvious answer is that a futurologist can charge a fat fee and I rather doubt if Clem Sunter would be taken seriously if he had ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ printed on his business card.
The other obvious difference is that futurologists tend to study lots of current data and take a hard look at world events when planning their future scenarios. This sure as hell beats looking at the entrails of dead animals and doesn’t leave the kitchen in as much of a mess. But before you reject haruspication out of hand remember that the ancient Romans practiced it and they went on to build quite a decent empire. You might keep that in mind before you bury the family cat.
After careful consideration my gut feeling is that this is merely a semantic stumbling block and, under certain conditions, they can be one and the same. Obviously one discounts the complete nutters who believe the earth is flat, that the moon landing never happened, that Paul McCartney died before Abbey Road was released and that the ANC are competent enough to run a country. They are obviously crazy. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
But how about the alleged COVID pandemic ‘whackos’ whose voices have been silenced because they weren’t spouting the official narrative? How many of PANDA’s predictions of two years ago have turned out to be spot on and how many ‘expert’ predictions of COVID related deaths in the recent Omicron wave have turned out to be utter balderdash?
The newly knighted UK gloom spreader, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, was urging the UK government to move into heavy lock down back in mid December. He was warning that Omicron would sweep through the sceptred isle laying waste to life and filling the hospitals with patients gasping for breath. Fortunately Boris & Co ignored his advice and allowed Christmas to go ahead and all was well. Perhaps the knighthood was his consolation prize.
Many of the COVID ‘experts’ have turned out to be spectacularly wrong with their predictions which is obviously why they need the mainstream media to silence and ridicule dissenting voices.
So maybe there’s a strong argument for saying that, with the benefit of hindsight, the vaccine zealots and their media shills were the real conspiracy theorists. Get the jab or you’ll kill your family. Get the jab and you’ll never get COVID. Prior immunity from infection absolutely does not count. Sanitise because COVID can live on a stainless steel surface for up to 72 hours and always, always wear a cloth mask in public, even if you are a toddler, or are outside.
Looking back over the past two years the largest pile of steaming, smelly stuff has been peddled by talk radio hosts and the mainstream media. The upside is that we now know never to believe them ever again.
So if yesterday’s conspiracy theorists are turning out to be today’s spot on futurologists maybe it’s time we accorded them the respect they deserve. Accurately predicting the future is almost impossible but it’s always fun to pretend you know what you’re doing so here’s my future scenario based on hours of in depth computer modelling (my computer model is called ‘NotreDamus’ because it is based on hunch) and a bottle of our home grown Shiraz 2017.
Canada has become a dictatorship in front of the eyes of the world and I have yet to see any strong condemnation of Trudeau’s despotic acts from any European leaders.
GB News’ Mark Dolan has wittily dubbed the effete Trudeau "a pound shop Putin" and many other reputable commentators have poured scorn on his thuggish response to the Ottawa truckers. But Euro politicians have remained mostly silent.
This is all because this is part of the masterplan; the Build Back Better grand reset bullshit.
Do you really think those G7 or G10 meetings are all about deciding what is best for the citizens in a democracy? As Austria, Italy and France have aready demonstrated, the people’s needs are of secondary importance and you will do what you’re damn well told by your masters. And if you don’t you will become a non-citizen.
Up until last week it appeared that people at least had the opportunity to peacefully protest against illogical and draconian laws but Canada has set a new standard for the erosion of democracy and people’s rights.
Once the government is allowed to freeze your bank account, seize your property, cancel your insurance policies and transfer charitable donations to a cause it deems more worthy then you know you’re in big trouble; particularly if the courts allow this.
I have absolutely no doubt that Trudeau’s invoking of the Emergency Act and his unilateral abolition of people’s basic rights is being watched with great interest (and envious eyes) by other members of the G group countries. Expect a dramatic increase in police and military brutality (for the general good obviously) and a greater willingness to crush any future uprisings. This is, after all, a battle between the highly educated left wing elites and the expendable working class riff-raff who keep the country running.
You may think this is just a conspiracy theory but I’m getting the impression that Mr Putin won’t find too much resistance to his methods once his tanks roll into Europe. He already has a strong ally in Canada after all.
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Like the obedient citizen I am I registered online for the census and answered all the questions. Interestingly, most people I have spoken to don’t even know that a census is being taken this month or that they can register online. It’s received very little coverage in the media. So it will be interesting when the results come out and reveal that large parts of Somerset West are apparently uninhabited.
One of the questions asked what sex I am and what sex my partner is and anybody else who lives under the same roof. The choice was disappointingly restricted and I was forced to choose between male and female so I opted for male this time around.
My heart went out to all those non-binary folk who will be feeling ‘marginalised’ by this. But at least they can wallow in their victim status whereas all I got out of the census was yet more accusatory evidence of my white privilege.
