Helllo Maurice, Here is my pilgrimage journal, with annotated photo links and all.
Log: January 13th 2:06 am somewhere over water toward New Zealand
We have been flying due South Southeast and sleeping for a few hours now.
While flying and sleeping, I dreamt about the Dark Side of the Force. It is exerting irresistible attractions, the promise of profit, elegance of logic, symmetry of physics, balance of chemistry, beauty of calculus, the mystery of geometry, and the loot of lucre.
I have in front of me a scrumptious and 3-centimeters thick stack of printed material extracted from the mind of many, through cyberspace, on the subject of 2004 and the must's, should's, and could's.
I will read the content of the entire stack, and all the spirited hopes as well as all the gloomy fears; but the Force will guide me, to do what I must :0)
I brought on the trip three books. I am about 70% done with "Financial Reckoning Day - surviving the soft depression of the 21st century" achamchen.com by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin.
For 4 months I had held back from reading the second book, "The Great Swindle - the story of the South Sea Bubble" achamchen.com , by Virginia Cowles, wanting to start and finish the book during this pilgrimage vacation.
My third book is "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown.
The book I left at home is "The Alchemy of Finance" by George Soros. I have never read anything written by Soros, but believe his book will be less of a vacation read than the books I have brought along.
Log: Same airplane, different date, same directional heading, 2:57am Hong Kong time
The Force appears to be hinting, by the variations of frequency and amplitude of its perturbations, that I should have a more balanced portfolio.
I must realize some profit before these profit disappears back to where they came from, and I must have more short positions in my already geography/currency/asset-class diversified but primarily long portfolio so as to adjust risk profile in accordance with the nature of the apparently dangerous environment.
The environment is still one of high paper asset valuation relative to earnings, mucho debt relative to savings, negligible capital investment relative to consumption spending, not enough jobs relative to number of idle folks, global arbitrage of labour, planet-wide competitive devaluation, rising protectionism, rising costs, declining profit relative to purchasing power, lots of geopolitical instability relative to strength to maintain order, gobs of deficits and shortfalls, enough speculation engendered financial time-bombs, too few solutions for too wide issue gaps, too many flawed theory models and false guiding principles, not enough effective leadership, and many pretenders.
Oh, yes, and we have oodles of chain-reaction capable fissionable material arrayed around each and every inflated home and negative cash-flow apartment, long emptied of equity that resulted from active work, all encapsulated within a bubble-like shell of potentially murderous interest rate derivatives, and all in turn built-up from the spin-controlled sub-atomic particle known as the USD.
Yup, we are perhaps heading toward TeoTwawKi, maybe by path of 'stagflationary depression' augmented by officialdom-sanctioned default, legislative-coded confiscation, and electorate-mandated redistribution, resulting eventually in dissolution, evaporation, repudiation, and revolution, either of the positive variety leading to rebirth, or of the negative type, featuring utter chaos, false messiahs, and sheople led ultimate destruction by endorsing self-destructive political radicalism.
If what I had described were an airplane, I would want to land and opt out of the remaining journey. But, in a world where cash is a risky position, and gold is a dangerous stance, I cannot get off the airplane.
And so, I go on pilgrimage, to commune with nature and her glory, to reflect on the state of IS, and to better prepare for what may well be.
Log: New Zealand, Aukland airport, somewhere where I can detect a perturbation in the Force ... Maurice must be quite close, thinking, 'am I not better off, my home increasing in value, my Q holding steady, and my USD rebounding, and so why can prosperity not result from a printing press?'
I am able to send a log entry to BBR SI by using my geewhizbang Sony Ericsson P800 via Vodafon NZ just now Message 19687865 <<January 13th, 2004>>
Log January 14th Bora Bora
Other than arriving achamchen.com at 9:00am at the Intercontinental Beach Comber achamchen.com from an over-night layover in Papeete, we did nothing of note today. I did send a log entry to Pezz Message 19702129 <<January 17th, 2004>> by using the hotel's business center Internet.
The island's public dial-up Internet accessible from my bungalow is not working today. I will make some minimum effort at doing some postings for journal purpose achamchen.com :0)
We napped in our bungalow achamchen.com , swam off its deck, ate and drank on its balcony achamchen.com , read, and generally kept amused for the day within 30 feet of our lodge built half a kilometer into the lagoon supported on stilts.
Our bungalow has an open view towards the ring of coral islands to the right of us that is many kilometers out.
The ring of islands/atolls/coral reefs achamchen.com totally encloses the enormous lagoon except for one man-made navigation channel that allows access to the world beyond the lagoon. To our left is the central feature of Bora Bora, its highest point.
We have deliberately kept away from the TV and all Internet-borne and newspaper news. I do not know what is going on outside of my bungalow saved for the activities on the visitor's to-do menu, but I have been issuing telephone instructions to my broker to rid of shares at the previous day's closing prices.
So far, not too bad living with 36-hours delayed quote. Golar LNG closed at 117/shr on the previous day, and I got away with 124/shr this day Message 19729999 .
I have just tee-ed up Teekay Shipping and Frontline Shipping. Both gained enough since my buy-in, now ripe for harvest.
At some point, perhaps only at the onset of now totally absent definitive signs of market wariness, I will add to my existing long LEAP Put positions on housing and finance shares.
Question: when do I start tap dancing on the tech index QQQ?
Now, it is time to wonder, view the tapestry of stars and listen to the symphony of the ocean surf. While wondering, I will also feed the lagoon's creatures their daily bread. Pagan rituals and comfy nap to follow.
Log: January 15th 12:30 noon Bora Bora time
We have been up for an hour. Swam, downed a grapefruit juice, hungry, waiting for food, dialup Internet is still not working, and the business center broadband is also affected. Tomorrow is the promised date of repair completion. I do not really care that I am deaf, blind and dumb, for the Force guides me in a dead-reckoning journey towards TeoTwawKi.
I am not worried. In fact, I am thankful. I am sure my Teekay and Frontline Ships are no more, and perhaps soon to sink.
I am holding on to my Knightsbridge and Nordic American for now, because the rich distributions will anchor their prices.
I am not sure what else I can sell, now that I am free of my Danish windmills, Norwegian and Bermuda ships, HK China plays, in exchange for small monetary regime currencies, gold, and LEAP Puts on US housing and mortgage-related shares.
Log: January 17th 12:30 Bora Bora time
It is now time to eat and read, again, and perhaps followed by a visit to town on this perfect day.
While in town I sent off this message Message 19704228 <<January 17th, 2004>>.
I changed my mind about holding on to Knightsbridge and Nordic American Tankers. There are three announced new fleets being organized by Chinese companies, and I do not wish to be competing against the coming deflation in crude shipping, preferring to re-allocate the money to Australian oil/gas fields at the onset of commodity correction, latching onto inflation of the stuff that go into tankers.
In this fashion, my portfolio is better in tune with the Force achamchen.com ;0)
Log: January 18th 5:20pm Bora Bora time
The weather is windy today, the sun is as nice as yesterday, as opposed to the day before that achamchen.com , and the water is swimming pool-blue as ever, just choppy.
We just got done with naps and fish feeding in the coral garden around our water lodge. The snorkeling is quite good off our balcony, and there are about two-dozen different tropical fishes swarming all around. Further out but not too far away, there are happy rays and friendly sharks achamchen.com .
This morning we took a one-hour drive around the entire Island in a rented open mini-car. The car has a motorcycle engine, and its automatic transmission has two speeds, one forward and the other reverse. Like the financial markets, if one is not selling at the current price then one is buying at the same price, except the financial markets have no off-switch.
The most popular car on the island appears to be the LandRover Defender.
We drove past the houses of Marlon Brando (he also owns an atoll nearby), and John Travolta in a complex called Bora Bora Condominium achamchen.com . Nothing fancy except the view.
In the town of Vaipete, Bora Bora's only town, we spotted a Chinese Restaurant called Golden Panda. I wondered whether anyone on Bora Bora knew what a Panda is. Later I asked the Tahitian lady behind the bar of my hotel. She said yes, and she said her grandmother is Chinese.
We also passed a Chinese grocery store, the biggest on the island, Chin Lee's.
About 6% of Tahitians are of Chinese origin, and there is supposedly a big do in Papeete, the provincial capital of Tahiti, for the Chinese lunar New Year celebration.
We passed one of the shops owned by probably the richest man in these islands, Tahiti Pearls, belonging to Robert Wan tahitiperles.com , Chinese Tahitian. He operates half a dozen pearl farms, sells in Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and is the primary supplier of quality Tahitian green, gold, charcoal and black pearls to the world.
One of his shop clerks, a lady from Seattle, took one month's living expenses from my wife yesterday in exchange for a single pearl mounted on an open-frame (a rectangular frame curved around) platinum bracelet.
The whole island's commerce is shutdown today, but its numerous churches are busy, full of people wishing to go to heaven even as they lived in what could be a close approximation there of, but on earth achamchen.com .
I wondered out loud whether these good people had a better idea of what heaven may be like .
My wife later observed that perhaps the folks living on Bora Bora do not actually enjoy swimming.
I looked at all the water on all sides of me and thought, 'that would be a bummer'.
Perhaps for the 'First Born' Bora Borians who do not like swimming, they could prefer some place like Tora Bora, the 'Black Dust' achamchen.com .
If so, then perhaps the Tora Borians would also prefer to trade places with the Bora Borians.
Harmony, balance, contradictions, long, short, calls, puts, gains, losses ...
... the mind tends to wander when baked under a hot noon sun.
At around noon there were small crowds outside churches, people dressed in their Sunday best, somewhat incongruous with what the tropics demand, passing the day for Sun but covered in clothing.
No matter, the world is a funny great place, and this Bora Bora world especially so.
We stopped at the Bora Bora Hotel achamchen.com for lunch. Three older folks from America joined us at the beach bar.
One guy was alone, a pearl trader, and the other a machine tool builder, accompanied by his wife.
They commented on the looks of my food (crab meat salad topped with local grapefruit served in half a pineapple) and drink, my own recipe, a concoction of coffee ice cream in coca cola, and the book beside me.
The machine builder ordered the same food choices as I.
I am done with "The Great Swindle" by Virginia Cowles, and had returned to the unfinished reading of another delicious book, "Financial Reckoning Day - How To Survive The Soft Depression Of The 21st Century", by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin.
The machine tool builder said the book sounded depressing. I replied that it was as delicious as the crab salad.
He asked me what the book was about, I said about the evils of printing too much money.
He commented 'how can too much money be a bad thing'. I responded that easy money leads to bubbles.
He said the dotcoms age was certainly a bubble. I said the dotcom bubble was only the appetizer, what is coming at us will be far worse. His eyes opened wider.
He asked me what the latest interest rate move by Greenspan is. I asked him how long he has been on Bora Bora. He said a month, I told him about Greenspan's taking credit for dealing successfully with the aftermath of a bubble rather than taking care of the bubble itself, and I informed him of Bernanke's recent unconcern with gold and energy prices, but fascination with higher generalized inflation.
At that point I helpfully added that the USD 25 crab salad and USD 9 ice cream soda on Bora Bora would probably taste the same if they cost half as much. And if at USD 50 and USD 18, less affordable by almost everyone except some business adventurers, other financial speculators, and their political hangers-on, before the furious proletariats, peasants, and mob electorates hunt them all down and dissipate what they have hoarded.
I told them what my understanding of the current and fashionable game plan to save the planet-girdling leveraged carry-trade population is, that the central bankers will try to stop real estates, stocks and bonds from falling in price by making our food and energy more expensive, and our money worth-less. Sounds like an interesting plan to me.
Ok, that is enough about my lunch monologue.
I just sucked down a coconut milkshake. Now I am ready for my Conga, a mix of tropical juices, after which, then dinner.
A piece of French soft rock music, with its detectable Moslem influence, is wafting over the sound system. I looked, and there is no one with explosive windbreaker nearby.
There are only about 5-6 couples occupying this resort of 64 bungalows. Ideal.
I recommend all those who want to visit Bora Bora to come during the low season. My contrary trade, visiting now, is working out well, as often, almost brilliantly.
Music by the "Buddha Bar" is playing and I am moved to sway.
It is a good thing that the dialup Internet has not worked since our arrival.
Later: dinner was cold tomato soup highlighted with roasted freshwater shrimp, followed by foie gras on thin toast, washed down with red wine.
Bora Bora could do far worse than being a current French province, like by being an ex-British colony, or becoming the current 51st state of the Union ;0) The French know their food achamchen.com .
Log: January 19th
Lost day, do not remember much, except that we did a refresher course for scuba diving.
Log: January 20th
We visited Shark Point achamchen.com , an upside-down cathedral-like coral garden.
Each of us was positioned at a rock at 24 meters below the ocean surface, looking upward, toward the light beyond the ocean surface. Visibility was about 60 meters, crystal clear.
Several dozen sharks swirled above us, fringed by thousands of smaller fish, highlighted by 3 manta rays, looking like airplanes, with what seems like missile tubes extending from their front.
The experience was rapturous, enabling one to see the work of god.
Today I finished reading the leftover sections of "Financial Reckoning Day" that I had held off on in order to start reading "The Great Swindle" upon arrival in Bora Bora, and am now on to "The Da Vinci Code".
I recommend all three books. The first tries to discern what may be ahead of us, the second tells of what went before, and the third is pure imagination but supported by research on the "what gave Friday the 13th its reputation", "the origin of the 5-rings Olympic symbol", "why is Olympic games held once every 4 years", "who is the most revered Apostles at the Last Supper", etc.
The three books have two things in common. They all make the reader anticipate the joy of picking up the book again after having just finished a reading session, and during a reading session, they all make the reader recline and clap the soles of the feet together in glee, pretending to be a seal or sea lion.
Log: January 21st
There is a bit of sadness today, for it is our third to last day before having to return to Hong Kong.
My wife achamchen.com , who is wake boarding now, a big city girl, always keen on the metropolis of New York and Paris, comments that she could move to Tahiti. Why? Why not Trinidad, Tobago, Vancouver Island …. Because she can operate completely in French, seems to get better treatment by the locals, prefers the food, and enjoys the water.
Me? I just fed the fish. I also got a quarter way through "The Da Vinci Code" and am now full of glee :0)
Bora Bora seems to have quite a few transplanted folks from all over the world. They come here on a visit, like the place, decide to stay, get a job or open a business, and in the years that follow, get asked "where are you originally from", "how long have you been here", "any plans to leave", but do not get queried "why did you stay".
I am less gleeful now. The wife just returned, with an equal-armed open-frame platinum cross pendant, shaped like the Red Cross symbol - according to "The Da Vinci Code" - the Cross of Peace, as opposed to that other Cross, the Roman torture instrument.
One open rectangular frame is dusted with diamonds, and at the central intersection of the two equal-arms, a high-grade (perfectly round, silk texture, mirror-like luster, iridescent reflection, black, and flawless surface) pearl.
I am guessing that all wives would figure the pendant partners nicely with the earlier mentioned bracelet.
We must de-camp this isolated coral-ringed world before I become a pearl expert. Upon arrival in Hong Kong, I hope the conditions will be such that I can immediately short some NEM puts to replace the lucre exchanged for pearls.
Log: January 22nd
Today passed as peacefully as yesterday, and the day before, and before that.
The hotel supplies the guest with a Multilanguage printout of the headline news of the day from around the world.
An item that shouted 'Bush says America faces hardship' heads the English language edition. I did not bother to read on, because I am guessing that the news story and Bush's speech did not address the 'why' of hardship, and so they cannot illuminate on the 'how long, how deep' of hardship. I need some read on the 'how long/deep'.
Fed the fishes and continued reading The Da Vinci Code. Beautiful fishes. Brilliant book.
Log: January 23rd 9:30am
Today is another brilliant day.
We will be leaving the island today, in the late afternoon, and fly back to concrete jungle Kowloon and asphalt beach Hong Kong. A little bit of sadness, as if about to go into exile achamchen.com .
My high-energy wife would like to stay on for a few more days. She claims that just thinking about Hong Kong gives her the tension, made worse by the prospect of the daunting 30-hours door-to-door return journey. It is now easy to see why so many outsiders have chosen to spend the rest of their lives in Bora Bora.
I am a happy soul, knowing that Bora Bora exists, and that we will visit again.
I just closed out the hotel tab up to this time, and while waiting, just to keep in practice, I looted NEM using the hotel computer and the front desk phone, via cyber net, or rather I exchanged some risky and soon repudiated USD credit for some less risky NEM insurance premium, or as Malcolm said, claimed birthright; I just shorted a bunch NEM June Put strike 37.5 at USD 1.75-1.80/shr.
Perhaps there will come a day when J6P will finance just-in-time living not by charging up his credit card, but by selling puts. This system will work well as long as Professor BurnAndKaput makes good his promise to fight 'deflation' of asset with every drop of ink at his disposal. The system would be brilliant, for no one will ever have to work another day, just making sure some puts are shorted in the morning, every morning, and the rest of the world remain stupid :0)
Log: January 23rd 11:30am - A Surprise
I just received a courier package from Canada addressed to yours truly at the hotel.
I could not make out the sender's name on the package and was about to alert Homeland Defense, forgetting that Bora Bora had no such organization.
Stumped, I had to open the package, but carefully, and a wonderful book appeared.
"Fiat Money Inflation in France" achamchen.com written by Andrew Dickson White, late president and professor of history at Cornell University back in 1896, again published in 1912 and 1923, before the Great Depression, about France back in 1789.
The introduction to the small and obviously precious book, written by John Mackay in 1914, promises that it will be an interesting read for the flight back to Hong Kong.
[EDIT: I looked up the book via Google, and apparently it is available on-line, in its entirety knowledgerush.com ]
Professor White read the paper that was the precursor to the small book to members of the US House of Representatives and Senators of both parties in 1876.
I am reminded of dusty archives and musty books that should be required reading for central bankers.
Introduction by John Mackay:
"... Create an inconvertible currency ... maintain its circulation at various levels of value ... to enact and enforce a legal limit of commodity prices ... every device and expedient that untrammeled power and unrepressed optimism could conceive were brought to bear ... failed ... left behind them a legacy of moral and material desolation and woe ... suffered for a century and a quarter, and will continue to suffer until the end of time ... There are limitations to the powers of governments and of peoples that inhere in the constitution of things, and that neither despotisms nor democracies can overcome.
Legislatures are as powerless to abrogate moral and economic laws as they are to abrogate physicals laws. They cannot convert wrong into right nor divorce effect from cause, either by parliamentary majorities, or by unity of supporting public opinion. The penalties of such legislative folly will always be exacted by inexorable time."
Oooh, this book promises to be very good, with woes to the end of inexorable time, about a fiat currency that was backed by one third of the value of all French real estate (confiscated from the Church), and not just an empty promise of still more promises.
And yes, the currency was supported by a democracy led by fairly substantial and learned leaders (Talleyrand, Du-Pont de Nemours, Bailey, Necker, Mirabeau, Sieyes) as opposed to financial chief who believes that a strong currency is a counterfeit-proof bill, and central banker who speaks of supposedly secret printing presses on international broadcasts.
For an appetizer of what could be, trend-setting California may show the way, following Argentina and Zimbabwe, but ameliorated by apparently still-large Japan, until small Japan's shattered gear works pop out of its aged and broken transmission, the cause of which is directly traceable to its historical high arrogance and over-reach 70 years earlier.
I do not believe true saviors are apparent yet, for cleansing turmoil compressed into cataclysmic economic depressions, chaotic revolutions and terrible wars, not mob-powered elections, usually precedes their appearances. Alternatively, we will have woe, to the end of inexorable time.
A note to Maurice, the French noblemen who managed to escape the earlier revolution, was able abscond with their hoarded gold to the islands in Polynesia and Caribbean, and buy cheap resources upon arrival, did the smart thing, survived, and enjoyed. Those who did not manage got their heads handed to them.
Yes, Maurice, we are going straight to TeoTwawKi, and if you mean to get off the ride, repent now, seek redemption by and by, and gain salvation later, or be prepared to say bye-bye to head.
I am thinking the gold is in a substantial secular bull market of unusually ferocious but deceptively tepid Force, climbing a worrying wall of real troubles ;0)
Chugs, Jay, watching interesting history |
