Moonbeam Markets
TC5...@aol.com
Previous postings “Meandering Markets”, “Mirky Markets”, “Marvelous
Markets” may be of interest.
Well, it is 1:30 AM CST and I have seen all the news I can take for one
night. I watched the Reform Party convention coverage on CSPAN, then
watched the “news”. I despise the very concept of political parties, but
I suppose that if one is necessary in order to gain political reform,
then I could hold my nose and vote for their candidates in the next
election. Of course I would have to register to vote in order to do that,
which I have not done in the past several elections.... I thought the
speeches by Mr. Choate and Mr. Perot were effective, no doubt due to the
experience they have in public speaking. I almost did not tune in due to
the poor quality of presentation I saw yesterday. I will be charitable
and not characterize the other persons who were on stage today. In any
case one year from now there will be Congressional elections. If you
think that the agenda for those elections will not be set by the Reform
party, then you had better find a mentally competent person to manage
your investments. Which insult should make it clear that in my opinion
you should be aware of what they are saying, whether you agree with them
or not, and whether you think they have a chance or not.
No doubt there are plenty of others who can give “expert” criticism of
the convention, but they probably charge for it. So I will give my
opinion for free purely for the pleasure of criticism, which those who
know me can verify. First of all there is the question of participation
by Mr. Perot. I mention this because the “news” did too. Let me put it
this way - as things are today, without Mr. Perot there IS no Reform
party (next week may be a different matter entirely). Now some people
will take this as a criticism of the party and Mr. Perot. This would be a
clear indication to me that the person drawing that conclusion is either
inexcusably ignorant, mentally incompetent, dishonest, or all of the
above. The only significant difference between Mr. Perot and about 200
million other Americans is that he accumulated a large fortune before
they yanked his chain. Back in 1992 before he even started to campaign,
he had some modest and reasonable criticisms, nothing compared to today,
and inconsequential compared to me. (As I tell people who ask, I am not
in left field or right field of the political ballpark, because I left
the ballpark so long ago that I do not even know where people buy
tickets, nor do I care. I am interested in other less organized games,
which is fortunate because I am not a team player.) With plenty of time
on my hands and fewer interesting computer games to play, I was paying
close attention to the “news” in 1992. The political parties could have
said “thank you we appreciate your concerns, we will consider these
things carefully”. They could then have gone through the motions and done
politics as usual with Mr. Perot returning to his personal interests.
This was not what happened of course. They chose instead to revile him,
implied he was a crazy old coot, implied that he was out to line his own
pockets, implied he was a front man for various things. Which is a
practical example of my contention that “there is a overwhelming majority
of stupid and incompetent people holding high office in governments”. I
say this because (unlike them) Mr. Perot has a self image as an honorable
man, practicing what he preaches, which they either did not bother to
learn or (incredibly) discounted. When they attacked his sacred honor he
*had no choice* due to that self image, so he was *forced* to up the ante
putting his fortune on the table. After five years it should be obvious
that he is prepared to spend the rest of his life proving that they were
“wrong wrong wrong” to slander him. So much for my amateur psychology....
If a few more billionaires or even a pack of multimillionaires could be
motivated to the same extent as Mr. Perot then there will be no
Republicans or Democrats on the ballots in 2002 because those parties
will be obliged to change their names. Considering that several rather
wealthy people were pounded in the market gyrations last week, I suggest
that they pay close attention to who is doing the bamboozling. In the
meantime every other member of the Reform party can theoretically be
bribed, harassed into apathy, or otherwise disappear from the political
scene. In practice there are 200 million more where those thousand
delegates came from, not to mention roaches like me still lurking on the
nets.
Now I present my criticisms of this amateur convention. When I say “you”,
I mean Mr. or Mrs. delegate.
1) The first mistake is trying to imitate the professionals in the
displays of agreement with the speaker. The professionals have decades of
experience orchestrating applause, standard waving and all the rest of
that hokum and nonsense. If the persons standing on the stage are not
presenting the consensus opinion of the delegates, then why in the world
are they up there ? The major party campaign applause is as artificial as
a television show laugh track. Since you had amateur speakers and no
crowd managers, the audience repeatedly missed what would have been an
applause cue, and several times showed that the audience was not quite
sure what had been said. I suggest simply allowing the speaker to talk,
as would be done in other public forums such as the National Press Club.
Then when the speaker is done let the delegates show approval.
Alternatively the speaker could hold a “hurrah” sign in the right hand
and a “boo” sign in the left to cue the audience. That would look silly,
but it would be far better than those fumbling silences. Or maybe the
speaker could do a thumbs up or thumbs down ?
2) Why waste network time telling the viewers how much you all like each
other and are just so very thrilled to be there ? You do not have 24 hour
multiple day time slots on multiple networks covering you. If your
speakers were not popular in the party they would not be ON the stage
because they would not BE delegates. If they were not highly motivated
they would not BE there. The major parties spend all the stage time
talking about themselves and each other because the one thing they do NOT
want to tell the public is what they will really be doing once elected.
Think about that a while...
3) Stop the silly behavior for the same reason as 2). You are not “Wheel
of Fortune” or “Are You Being Served?”. Your objective should be to
inform the public, not to entertain them. When the signal to noise ratio
falls to zero the network audience tunes you OUT, because the folks in
Hollywood can do the job much better than you. Do not waste the time of
“millions of viewers like you”.
4) Logical reasoning and speech occur in different areas of the brain. It
is possible to prepare an excellently reasoned presentation of fact and
opinion (imitate me). It is possible to read that presentation aloud so
ineptly that everybody feels uncomfortable without knowing why. Some of
your speakers did precisely that, with the message becoming lost in the
presentation. Either find people who already know how to present a speech
or get a coach for those fumbling amateurs. Make them practice in front
of a camcorder and then show them the videotape. Another factor is of
course stage fright, which may account for part of 3) above. Weed them
out before they embarrass you in public. I will not even mention the
poorly written amateur speeches, except to point out that you are not
writing it for your family, you are writing it for somebody who may
disagree with you.
5) It is far far better to say “I will have to think about that a while”
rather than to give a stupid offhand opinion. Mr. Perot already knows
that, the rest of you had better learn it. You can be certain that the
sound bites selected will be the pick of the stupid answers from the
least photogenic persons among you. The entertainment industry has
conditioned the public to expect words flowing out of your mouth the
instant a question is posed. There is a technical term for this down in
Texas - diarrhea of the mouth complicated by constipation of the brain.
The simple cure is to take a moment to think through your entire
statement before speaking. When a question is posed a nod, hand gesture,
or “ah” should be enough to let the interviewer know that you understood
the question. Interviewers are trained to rush you into saying things
before you think by immediately restating the question or posing a
different question when you do not answer immediately. The first time
they do it “Are you done?” may let them know you will not fall for that
trick. If they do it again try “Are you done badgering me?”. The next
time try “Why don’t you make up the answer giving you the most personal
satisfaction since you are obviously not interested in my opinion?” Get
an apology or take a hike, because THEY are the fools in that situation,
not you.
6) I see no evidence of technology in your organization. Every one of you
should have had a laptop computer and a cell phone to improve your
command and control capabilities. You are fighting a war on stupidity so
far as I can tell. Do not let the enemy dictate the terms of engagement.
You can be certain that every reporter and political hack observing you
has the proper equipment. Doing things on the cheap is stupid unless
there is some law I do not know about blocking you. You should also be
using some electronic voting system similar to the one in Congress.
Record everything you are doing and put it on the web as soon as
possible. Set at least as high a standard for reporting as Congress,
because you are making history. Besides, if you do not put it on-line,
then how can roaches like me find out what you are doing ? Did it never
occur to you that there are at least ten million computer printers
waiting to publish (often anonymously) your output ? Why in the world did
you not have a LARGE poster showing your web sites tacked to the podium ?
Do you think that people want to waste time doing a search to find you on
the net ? One more thing - when you go home every precinct should have
several organizers with personal computers to do desktop publishing. If
you need assistance, put your name and address on the web. You just might
find a roach like me knocking on your door to give you some anonymous
personal assistance.
7) Always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If
something is fact rather than opinion, have the source of that fact on
hand. If you quote something, put a URL link to it on your web site. If
it is publicly available printed information, put that reference on your
site including page and paragraph. If it is not publicly available, put
it on the net yourself so those ten million printers can publish it. Your
biggest problem is that you say various things which cannot be verified
offhand within five minutes. I suggest that five minutes is about all the
time that most of the public is going to give you. If you do not convince
them by the evidence, then you are just a bunch of rabble rousers. I
heard some things said which sounded rather stupid to me. I cannot be
more specific since I did not really intend to make so many remarks at
the time I was listening. Put transcriptions on the web as Congress does.
8) If you are so dirt poor that you cannot do online surveys of your
own, then you certainly will not be able to afford network
advertisements. If you do not know how, find somebody who does. It is
stupid to pay somebody else to perform your polling and surveys. If they
do not like the results you report, then your opponents will pay for a
“professional” poll. Use the online community to develop a preliminary
platform. Use the personal computers in all the precincts to print out
surveys and take them through the neighborhoods to find out what the
general public thinks. Revise the surveys and do it again. The next
election is about what the public wants, NOT about what YOU want. You are
practically by definition a self selected nonrepresentative sample of the
public. Swallow your pride and put your money where your mouth is -
serving the public. Publish all the propositions rejected by the public
in a set of historical log files with the polling data. Information is
your greatest weapon. The reason why you got skunked in the last election
was because your opponents convinced the population that you were going
to do some stupid things. So this time show that you considered and
rejected as many stupid things as possible. Even if you lose, then at
least you will have *asked*.
9) Some of you may be wondering by now what a “roach” is. Until I crawled
out of the woodwork, I was not even sure that I was a roach. The
subspecies I call roach is drawn from a large pool of subspecies
including but not limited to loose cannons, lightning rods, nerds,
hackers, and geeks. Most of them still do not know that they are roaches.
We are politically disengaged vermin lacking all respect for authority
and/or authority figures. We may do what you ask but we will never, ever
follow your orders. We may give you more help than you feel is strictly
necessary. We do not know each other, and we do not want to know each
other. A true roach (like me) will not hold political office or work for
any government. Some of us will certainly get squashed, but as we scurry
about we shall have almost as much fun as while playing a really good
computer game.
------------------------------------------
The news out of Iraq shows them burning the flag of the United States of
America. This seriously annoys me. You would think that the people of
Iraq would be able to remember that we killed a million of them the last
time they invited us to party. You would think they would notice that
their entire adult male population is less than the number of illegal
aliens in and entering the USA because *they* think it is the best nation
in the world. Are the people of IRAQ insane or just congenitally stupid ?
Is it going to be necessary to give them a refresher course ?
Personally, I do not think that a generation is obliged to honor the
rules laid down by a previous generation, because this concept assumes
that responsibility is a transferable commodity. Only a bureaucracy
thinks that responsibility can be unequal to authority. We did not have
the authority to make the rules laid down by gramps, but we for sure will
take the authority to change or break them where appropriate. I think
that the UN should have its butt kicked back to Geneva where it came
from. I think the UN should be free to make whatever rules it likes, but
where those rules infringe the sovereign power of a nation (notice I did
NOT say government) then include us OUT. In case the people of IRAQ have
a short term memory deficit, let me remind them that the reason why the
UN can infringe on their sovereign powers (and be backed by the entire
world community) is because the same government still running IRAQ said
it would do whatever the UN ordered if we would just please not
exterminate them. The corrective action required is left as an exercise
for the student.
Well it’s 9 AM CST and I reckon that I have done a good day’s work. All
opinions are my own. Poll a representative sample of the population if
you have not had a good scare lately. I am not a member of any political
organization. I am not paid to do any of this. I guess you could say that
I am enjoying the warm and fuzzy philanthropic feeling resulting from
giving away lots of unwanted criticism.... Although I give my email
address below, anybody thinking of contacting me should be aware that the
correspondence will reach a wider audience, over which I have little if
any control. Remember never to say anything you would not want your worst
enemy to hear. Ain’t free speech wunnerful ? In China I would never have
gotten past the first posting.
No Guarantee, No Warranty, No Liability, Don’t Hassle Me
Sincerely, Lonnie C. Clay- TC5...@aol.com
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