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Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jumper who wrote (11293)	2/21/2000 2:16:00 PM
From: Cynic 2005	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42523

Random Thoughts: Part 1 (Hold your applauds and attacks till I finish this 3 part series.) To all, For a couple of weeks now this thread has been getting some bad rap from some other prominent SI posters. I have no doubt that there is a lot of cursing about the content and style of this thread via PMs. Since I am the one who started this thread, I felt obligated to address some of the issues I have seen raised in public posts. BACKGROUND I don't recall the events that led to my starting this thread. But my only intent to start this thread was to have fun while expressing some market beliefs candidly. If you ask me if I could have achieved that objective on other threads, I have no answer that would justify the existence of this thread. The Naked Truth, BK is a Myth thread could have very well served the same purpose. When I started this thread, I have no idea that this will become as popular as it is. Certainly I would not say some of the things that are said here by many. Definitely I would not behave or approve the way some posters behave on this thread. . Then again, I can say the same about many other threads as well which includes the MDA now MDD thread. I have no control over what people say on this thread. I don't want to moderate or dictate terms to any one on this thread or any other thread. What makes this thread controversial is perhaps the content on this thread. Or perhaps it is the style of the posters. Again, these are two things I have no control over and I can't help if any one is offended by them. I am a peace lover myself but I do realize that, if history is any guide, peace is as much against human nature as universal philanthropy is. Besides, it is not my mission to preserve peace among all the earthlings – especially bulls and bears. I believe SI has created enough checks and balances for people to ignore what they don't like and they should use their privileges. WHAT IS THE THEME OF THIS THREAD? If you look at the list in the following post, a few attitudes towards investing or trading were identified. If you think “clown” is an offensive word that describes these attitudes, read the again with out reference to the title “clown.” Message 12374946 I will address each of those dangerous attitudes in a later post. Mind you, I consider myself as no exception to having these dangerous attitudes. The clown list doesn't include the people who know what they are doing. Over the past few years I have been on SI, I have seen a lot of traders or investors who know what they are doing. I learned a lot from them and I have tremendous respect for them. Michael Burke, John P., Ground Zero, Iqbal Latif, Judy etc. are among them. PARTICIPANTS, CONTENT AND STYLE The regulars of this thread are not novice investors or traders. Most of them are not even investment professionals. However, almost all of them are professionals – engineers, lawyers, accountants, and software professionals. The common trait among them appears to be the realization of the fact that there is no such thing as free lunch in this economy. And the second most common trait appears to be the unequivocal cynicism and contempt for wall street vested interests, lack of accountability at governmental and regulatory bodies, analysts selling soul to get investment banking business, lack of objectivity among financial press, accounting shenanigans at corporate America. The third most common trait is penchant for Cheers and Sienfield style fun. I do not believe (of course, that is my opinion) that this thread is a bear hang out nor do I believe that the participants want gloom and doom. I personally crave for equilibrium set by free-market forces, not a market moonshot created by bailout after bailout of irresponsible speculators. I believe that is what most regulars on this thread want. Content here is contrarian – which, by definition, is against the majority. At present, the majority is bullish and that makes this thread bearish. However, there are a lot of people on this thread, including yours truly, who buy and sell long. Why they don't get publicized is that this bullish trading happens with a lot of cynicism. No cheerleading is done here on individual issues (except may be for gold.) What is overlooked by some critics is the fact that the almost all regular posters on this are subjected to ridicule just as that guy on a remote thread who doesn't agree with the market opinions of the regulars on this thread. The style on this thread is rough. Very rough. Most definitely this thread is not for every one. Especially for people with thin skin. As with the language on this thread – sure there is a lot of cursing. I used to be a “good boy” and occasionally even I have resorted to cursing. I regret my resorting to cursing to make my point and I pledge that I will try to avoid cursing as much as possible. I hope others on the thread do the same. While we are on the subject of cursing, I do not see why “floating stuff in a septic tank” is a decent phrase while “sht” is not. Personally I used to be* a very polite and non-controversial poster. Though I tried to maintain the same tempo all along, there are times I got carried away – especially in recent months. It is possible that I have unintentionally offended some people. I publicly apologize to all those. However, I have no problem is calling spade a spade when I see outright lunacy or hypocrisy. There are posters who claim to have hot-line to angels. I did and still do ridicule that belief or concept, not the poster himself. There are posters who do nothing but mo-mo trading (incidentally, according to them no price is high price to pay for a “good” company) and yet they criticize momentum traders as “fleas”. I do not mind going on record with a jab at them. There are posters who think bears are evil and I think they are ignorant and don't know any better. To be continued….