Podcast Special: American Adjunct Professors Resorting to Prostitution

In this one topic podcast, Cappy reads from an article from The Guardian about American adjunct professors, how they're poor, some homeless, and others even desperate enough to resort to prostitution.

The article and the podcast are ABSOLUTELY MUST listening and reading in that it highlights everything wrong with leftism, socialism, and the consequences of ignoring reality and making these things your religion.  All (not some) ALL of the professors highlighted are middle aged+ women, with completely worthless degrees who swallowed whole the leftist indoctrination that all that mattered in the world was what THEY wanted.  The resulting horrendous consequences are only outdone by the laughter, joy, and "I-told-you-so-ism" that comes with watching arrogant, egotistical, and above all else, lazy leftists get the absolute every-living shit beaten out of them by reality.  It only adds additional sprinkles, whip cream, and cherries to the sundae when you find out most are divorced, some have kids, and others write spectacularly craptastic books.

Ensure EVERY young man and woman you know who is going to college listens to this podcast as well as reads Worthless so they will not suffer the same fate as these leftist automotons. 

Direct MP3 link here.

RSS feed here.

Academics are Whores

No, seriously.  They are literal whores now.

Will be covering this on the podcast tomorrow.

The Stock Market's IQ is Only 105

It was 23 years ago and I, an intrepid, determined young man, wanted to prove to the middle aged baby boomer interviewing me that I was indeed the best man for the internship "job."  I had perfect grades, truly did have the determination for the job, and perhaps (what was in hindsight the biggest qualifier) I was supporting myself and didn't rely on mumsie and poopsie to support me.

And so there I sat, answering questions the slightly rotund, middle aged man posed to me, until he asked me a question that I had never been asked before:

"So what investment ideas do you have?"

This question threw me off because I didn't really think much of investing because I had no money to invest.  If anything I was just trying to pay cash for college so I wouldn't incur any student debt.  But I did have one investment idea which had been battling about in my brain, that though elementary, was the first that popped to mind.  And so circa 1996 I said, "I would buy up property in the outer suburbs from farmers, hold onto it, and sell it at a gain."

The then-middle-aged baby boomer looked at me, wholly unimpressed, looked back at his notepad, scribbled something down and I obviously did not get the job.

Fast-forward to today and we of course, with hindsight, realize just what a - ahem - BRILLIANT (and devilishly handsome) young man I was.  Because any dope investing and buying up farmer land in 1996 would have made a killing to the point of paid-retirement had he sat on that property for 10 years.

But there is a more important lesson lurking in this story and one that my readers can gain from.  And that lesson is not to overestimate competition, enemies, people, or society as a whole.  Do not play 4D chess when these entities aren't even capable of playing checkers.  For if you overestimate your adversary, society, an economy, a market or any other system, you inaccurately diagnose what is going on, and thus make wrong decisions that will cost you in the future.  And the entity I want to discuss today is the financial markets.

To be succinct, the financial markets operate at an IQ of 105.  Not dumb, but certainly not smart.  But to the untrained (though logical eye), you may view the financial markets as this vast, complex, overly intelligent entity that only Harvard and Ivy league "financial geniuses" can understand.  However, if you do, you are over estimating the "intelligence of the market" and therefore going to fail to predict it.  This unfamiliarity most people have with financial markets allow people who work in the financial markets to "bluff."  To present a fake front or air about them, making it seem they're much smarter than they actually are.  But if you look at the type of people who compose the financial market system, you'll see financial markets for what they truly are - a ho-hum, terribly UNimpressive lot.

First there are the clients, namely individual and corporate investors.  I differentiate between "corporate" and "institutional" investors as institutional investors (hedge funds, quants, insurance companies, etc.) are the ones who might actually have some smart people about them, while "corporate" investors I consider your mindless HR managers who manage 401k and 403b plans.  Regardless, individual and corporate investors are your you rank and file sheep who never ask "why does the stock market keep going up," never bother to ask "what if everybody invests in a 401k?  won't that inflate the stock market," and can often be found at the sports bar, horking down wings, wearing another man's jersey.  These people have an IQ on average of around 90 and think The Stephen Colbert Show is news.

Second, there are the actual "professionals" in the finance industry.  I use that term loosely because most professions in the finance industry don't require any real intellectual rigor or effort.  Nearly everybody in the financial markets (no matter what they say) are salesmen.  Bankers, brokers, even investment bankers do nothing more than sell, sell, sell, and then claim to be "geniuses" when they get a commission on a deal.  The majority of day traders fancy themselves geniuses when the stock market is booming, but oddly enough disappear when the general trend in the stock market is down.  M&A types think borrowing at an artificially low 3% to buy back stock in LBO's is somehow "genius" when in reality the federal reserve's charitable monetary policy makes it so a three year old could do it.  And let's not forget the talking heads at CNBC, the financial news media, and the legions of professors and "experts" they have on the show.  I still fondly remember the days they were talking about Krispy Kreme's IPO.  In the end and in their totality, these are not brilliant financial geniuses who know something about the financial markets you don't.  They are your run of the mill aged "dude bros," with IQ's solidly in the 105's, who are only capable of graduating from business school and all want to be "the big idea guy."

Then there is a modicum of smart people.  These are more of your truly renegade maverick types who not only possess intelligence, but the courage to rebuke group think and think independently.  Schiff, Shiller, even moi.  Quants, econometricians, and other data science types.  And traditional finance professionals who happen to also be genuinely intelligent (as profiled in the movie "The Big Short.")  These people certainly have IQ's above 120, but their numbers are so small, and the financial industry so unmerocratic, they have no affect on the market's overall intelligence.

The result is an industry that not only has an unimpressive IQ of 105, but is completely obsolete.  Additionally, because it lacks true, genuine intelligence, it often gets caught with its pants down, or even its hands in the cookie jar.

In terms of obsolescence, most finance professionals are simply not needed in that the vast majority of them cannot beat the stock market returns of the S&P 500 index.  The average person, without a day of finance education, can invest in the index and beat 85% of the professionals, all replete with their MBA's from Harvard.  Even sales people are obsoleted through in the advent of roboadvisors.  All one has to do now is go to a site like Betterment, answer some questions online, and the roboadvisor will come up with a portfolio of index funds that will match your target retirement date (I believe in this product so much I offer it as an affiliate program).  One could even say crowd-funding will inevitably replace investment banks...that's if most crowd funding ventures didn't completely suck.  These people never did anything truly intelligent or genius-like.  And so now that the technology exists that can do 105 IQ level tasks, there's really no need for the majority of finance professionals today.

Of course, this doesn't stop people from entering the world of finance.  Plenty of ex-high school football players, dude bros, frat boys, and other normies who watched too much "Wolf of Wall Street" want to make their millions.  But instead of doing it honestly like say an entrepreneur, a STEM major, or surgeon, that requires too much work and sadly, an IQ around 120.  So off to business school they go where they think they're going to "break their way into Wall Street" and all become investment bankers. 

And some do!

But remember, these aren't terribly intelligent people.  They're conformists and morons who were wearing their hats on backwards in the 90's.  And thus, even though it is PAINFULLY obvious there's something wrong with the stock market or economy, they lack the intelligence to see it.  Thus we get;

The dotcom crash
The housing crash
Dick Fuld
Lehman Brothers
TARP
AIG
and
The Great Recession

And then there's getting your hand caught in the cookie jar.  Some of these people are so egotistical, so desperate to be rich and successful, but lack the mental strength to do it, they'll resort to outright theft.  Bernie Madoff, Tom Petters, Edward Woodward, Jon Corzine, Jeffery Skilling, the list goes on of ponzi schemes, embezzlement, fraud and other financial sins where "financial geniuses" just couldn't make an honest buck.  And yet, all the sheep look in amazement as if there's a thing called "financial geniuses" or something actually intelligent going on in the stock market instead of hustling, sales, and lying.
The cost in overestimating the financial market's intelligence is you spend money you simply don't have to.  Financial advisors, financial planners, brokers, mutual fund managers, consultants, and salesmen, none of them are doing a job you can't.  These "super smart people" can easily be replaced with roboadvisors, Berkshire Hathaway, investing in the index, or simply spending less than you make.  So I implore you.  Do not be intimidated by what is simply "the unknown."  Financial markets are not that complicated and you can quickly self-educate yourself on their basic functions.  And if you're willing to do this, you will save yourself thousands in managerial fees and commissions, not to mention ensure you never get scammed by the Bernie Madoff's out there.
_________________

Aaron Clarey is a banking veteran who knows the world of finance inside and out.  And he only wants to help people realize they don't need it.  He is the author of many books on finance and economics, and also offers an introductory course to stocks, bonds, and investing.  You can tune into his ranting, curse filled podcast here, and visit his consultancy here.

A Conservative Lives, While a Leftist is Still Dead

Steve Scalise has returned and James Hodgkinson is still dead.

New Sponsor: Business Buyer Advantage

If you are looking to buy, invest in, or perhaps even sell a business, may I recommend dropping in on our new sponsor, David Barnett of Business Buyer Advantage. 

In short Dave runs an outfit not too unsimilar to my little online media empire here, expect he specializes in entrepreneurship.

He has a blog.
He has books.
He has a YouTube channel (actually some pretty good videos there)
And he has courses.

The only thing I don't think he has is a consultancy where he yells and screams at people.

Regardless, I will be interviewing David about his business on my YouTube channel in part because he's a sponsor, but more so to find out precisely how his business works and the particular niche he's carved out for himself on this here interwebz.

Regardless, check out and poke around his site and see if Business Buyer Advantage might be of interest and use for you!

Cappy Returns

Howdy Lieutenants,

The Ole Captain has returned home and will get back into his groove after chasing down some errands and doing a couple chores.  Ended up coming up with a ton of new posts and deeper thought pieces, but it was nearly impossible to write while adventuring out west.  I wanted to thank Cynical Libertarian and Adam Piggott for covering me and if you haven't already, you may want to check out their sites.

In total I drove over 4,000 miles, hiked over 100, and was gone precisely one month to the day.  I cannot recommend randomly wandering through the west enough, and should you retire or be a digital nomad it is something to seriously consider before you die.  Anyway, things will finally get back to normal and I'll be thankful to sit in a truck and sleep in my own bed.

Cappy

Episode #228 of The Clarey Podcast Piggott/Great One Special

Adam Piggott and The Great One Himself sit in for Cappy as he needs to take a break from podcasting and fly back home from Vegas. Learn about Irish Spring, hot field hockey Dutch chicks, the crappy weather in Holland, and MORE as these two kind gentlemen fill in for the Captain.

Direct MP3 link here.

RSS feed here.

Glorious Karl's New Book - Trade the Ratio

Greetings All,

New sponsor and that is our good friend Glorious Karl who has written his first book, "Trade the Ratio."

If you are a novice to precious metals, or you already have purchased some but would like to trade them in an attempt to make money on them, this book is for you. 

I've already written a review on the Amazon page, but the short version is it's pretty good, but I would skip the first chapter where it goes through the history/arguments for precious metals, and go directly to the trading portion of the book.  This isn't to say the first part was bad, just that most of my readers are already intricately familiar with the economic case for precious metals.

Regardless, help Glorious Karl out and consider purchasing "Trade the Ratio."

Millennials Giving Up the Right to Vote

As long as their student loans are forgiven.

Please dear god in heaven, make this happen.

At Least You Bailed Out Single Moms and Have a Micro Socialist State

Because who needs that lousy stinking electricity anyway?

Cappy's Second Adventure into Dinosaur National Monument

Pictures from my hike down Jones' Hole.  Saw some pictographs and made some friends at the end of the hike which you should see if you look closely enough!

Episode #228

Cappy "recaps" his past week of adventuring.
Cappy realizes broken and/or bruised ribs really hurt.
A segment live from Dinosaur National Monument.
Why don't kids like petroglyphs!!!???
Homesick.

AND MORE

in this ADVENTURING EPISODE of The Clarey Podcast!!!

Direct MP3 link here.

RSS feed here.

A Job Posting for All Cappy Cappites at Academic Composition

You all know Alex, he's on his fall hiring (and selling) spree as the kiddies in college finally realize that "oh wait, I have to study" and the fun times are all of the sudden not so fun anymore.

Anyway, if you have a laptop and can write or you're willing to tolerate a tedious posting of jobs to the internet, you can make a little coin that will hopefully cover any spell of unemployment...or if you live in Cambodia, cover your rent!  His message is below:

As many of you may know, we have been expanding our business quite a bit. To be sure, we owe a great deal to all of you who regularly visit Aaron's blog and help us reach our goals. Academic Composition is ready for another fast-paced and a grueling semester.

The Fall season is starting and most of our clients are resuming their classes.

Although we rely heavily on the support of returning customers, we are always looking to expand and this is the ideal time to pick up new clients.

Students are now much more likely to contact academic writing services such as ours than they were before.

October and November are the busiest juncture of the academic year, so we're definitely looking for more marketers.

The arrangement is simple. We'll provide you with the ads and you'll post them.  You'll then get paid a flat fee for posting the ads and a bonus for each prospective client who will respond to your posts.

To get started, follow these basic instructions.

1. Create a new email address with gmail

2. Set up the forwarding feature to make sure all incoming emails come to me

3. Send a test email to yourself to make sure the forwarding works

4. Use the new address to create a CL account

Once you are done, contact us at academiccomposition@gmail.com and we'll walk you through the rest of the procedure.

On average, our marketing associates spend about 30 minutes a week on these tasks and given how busy the Fall semester is, many earn over a $100. Not a bad bargain considering that these tasks require very little effort.

Thanks again and we look forward to working with you.

Ladies, Your Career is More Important Than ANYTHING Else!

Hey, it's Sheriff Peterson!

An Actual Example of Racism

And stupidity on top of it.  How in f#cks name do you shoot yourself in the SHOULDER???

The Emmy's and Stephen Colbert's Obsession with Trump

Hollywood's, and particularly, Stephen Colbert's obsession with Trump blinds them to the fact that America views them first and foremost for entertainment.  And when all you know is "slam Trump/slam Republicans," after 12 years of that schtick, it gets mighty tiresome and people tune out.

Of course, this is merely belying the fact Hollywood and the likes of Colbert really have no talent, innovation, or anything new to offer the American public.  Just like most of today's artists, they suck, and then use leftist political messages in their paintings, sculptures, poetry, and architecture to obscure this fact.

Yes, Stephen, I know you and everybody younger than you were brainwashed to hate conservatives, republicans, America, and white people in K-college.  But even with this huge indoctrinating/marketing/religious advantage, people get sick and tired of politics and sometimes actually want politics-free entertainment.  Alas, I'd like to say, "so get your monkey ass back in the cage and do a little dance," but you and most of Hollywood can't even muster up the artistic creativity to do that.

But by all means, please do make your life career "slamming Trump," and thus letting Trump define your lives.  Nobody is watching anyway.

Cappy's Adventures in Dinosaur National Monument and Harper's Lookout

Long day today where I visited both the Colorado and Utah sides of Dinosaur National Monument.  The Colorado side has the actual town of "Dinosaur" in it, though no dinosaur bones have been found.  But Harper's Corner or Lookout provided some of the best views of this trip so far. 

The Utah side of the park is very pretty, but is most known for a gold mine of dinosaur fossils that you can take a shuttle to see which are preserved in the original stone where they were found (the pictures does not do their size justice).

The Left Will Eat It's Own

Though I'm starting to wonder that instead of some kind of deep philosophical economic survival reason for leftists eating their own, maybe the simpler explanation is they're just batshit insane.

Why Minimalists are the Superior Race

Also related, if you want to learn about minimalistic retirement planning.

The Colorado Utah Hinterlands Adventure

These were taking from the town of Gateway, Colorado, which is near the border with Utah.  Took a road bike on a dirt road, which is not advisable, but did get some epic shots.

All That Virtue Signaling for Nothing

Poor Google, despite all the lip service and espousing the correct leftist values, feminism still comes a-knockin' for it's danegeld. 

Again, the left will eat its own because it is programmed to put itself and its enrichment ahead of everybody else, even fellow leftists. 

The Biggest Lie Sold to Women: Part 2

Saw this come up on my blogroll feed, but Roosh exemplifies an irony most young (and old) women do not understand about non-feminist, non-leftist, traditional men.

They're not your enemy.

Matter of fact, men advocating traditionalism (or heck) merely pointing out biological reality, are actually better friends and allies to women than most feminists are.  And it has nothing to do with ideology, politics, philosophy, or some newly discovered epiphany.

It's merely that they're speaking the truth.

The good news is that I'm past the point of caring whether young women waste their lives or not. I, along with thousands of other men, have said our peace, tried to toll the bells, sound the alarms, and help women of our generation in the past, only to be eviscerated, yelled at and called "sexist."  And after a decade or so of that, not only do you tire of trying to help people, you soon realize it's too late for the women of your generation. And not only is it too late, they got precisely what they deserved.

I suggest you younger men try to reach this same epiphany and understanding.  If young women want to waste their lives chasing worthless degrees and replacing the emptiness in their lives with socialist/feminist politics, let them.  And not only let them, encourage them.  You are only going to be accused of misogyny if you try to introduce biological or economic reality into their lives, so cheer them on.  And when they're 53, finishing up that "Masters in Health Administration", and only have $100,000 in student loans and 4 cats to show for it, THEN you make the case for traditionalism, but while also saying...

"Of course, this is academic, for it's too late for you."

Cappy Rides from Silverton to Ouray to Telluride

Telluride, btw, is oozing pretentious assholes.  I cannot emphasize enough how you should NEVER visit that place unless you want to see rich trust-funders, old hippies (with "EBT Accepted here!" at the farmer's market) and makeup-less women.  I snapped some pictures, turned around, and headed back out to the parts of Colorado where people work for a living.

The dog at the bottom was worthless, but completely lovable.  

Asshole Consulting

This is not a post.  Had some issues with Flickr and just uploading this image.  Remember, though, it's always better to pay Asshole Consulting $35 now than it is to pay back $150,000 in student loans tomorrow.

Climbing Engineering Mountain

Banged out Engineering Mountain.  12968 feet.  Not bad for an old fart.  Video is up top, pics below: