Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night: Portfolio/Market Update, July I - part one

 

Good Afternoon - an ethnic problem.

Good Evening - a reality problem.

Good Night - a time problem.

'Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.' Mary Douglas

Good Afternoon.

We have something of an... ethnic problem in the west. A bad one. A very, very bad one. 

Mind you the notion of actual or even defined ethnicity is more than a little problematic. Let's try the Cambridge: a large group of people with a shared culture, language, history, set of traditions, etc., or the fact of belonging to one of these groups. Or Grok: 'Ethnicity refers to a social group that shares a common cultural identity, often based on shared ancestry, language, traditions, history, or geographic origin. It’s distinct from race, which is more about physical characteristics, though the two can overlap. Ethnicity is shaped by cultural practices and self-identification, like Irish, Navajo, or Han Chinese, and can include elements like religion, cuisine, or customs. It’s not fixed and can evolve over time or through migration.' So.. are you are Cambridgian or a Grokian? Blue or black? Bold or normal?

Maybe one should ask: is this post pro-cambridge or anti-cambridgian? It's not in bold type after all, not in blue and even has the mojority of words used that are different from those in the Cambridgian text. Therefore this post and I are not merely Grokianesque but pro Grokian. Or anti-Cambridgic, you could say. 

Of course it is and I am: Death to the C-E-D's (Cambridge English Dictionaries, the chosen ones.) Sigh. You can smirk if you'd like but pause a moment - unless you're relaxed on an easy beach or atop a cool, fresh and quiet mountainside. If so, just enjoy. If not - listen to yourself feeling inside: you're likely already favoring one or the other side. A tiny bit. We create our own worlds. The sides aren't really there.

A problem: when we impose those self created worlds and the stories that maintain them, onto others. When our stories aren't merely confounded with reality but IS reality whereas reality - is reduced to merely a story-slave, something only to serve the story and the roles we play in that story. And those who espouse reality must be diminished to... Russian trolls, let's say. Antisemites. Purveyors of false information. Maga. Or worse: Anti Cambridgian! Worthy of sanction, passport withheld, accounts blocked, no trial, do not pass go, go directly to jail. Sigh.

It's easy to do. Any difference can be fatal if made so. Once you've created that barrier between yourself or your tribe and the rest of the world then formalize such barriers or walls with ritual, rhetoric and religion and - you end up with a tiny, fear-delineated group prone to manipulated fanatical violence. A perfect little army. In the hands of monsters. Monsters of monsters.

Of course it's quite a bit more stratified, complicated and complex: systemic information once expressed is so very sticky, from society to language to neural pathways to motivated behavior to epigenetically transmitted inter-generational information and on.  But... you probably get the idea. Define and control one group into a gang - but divide and conquer everyone else. Fear and anger.

The west, or one should say a tiny group of people in the west, has been doing it for... a long time. To monstrous ends. Name one: colonial rascism. Call another: money-lending oligarchical manipulation. Describe still another: fear, theft and murder. Define the recurring intended end: global slavery. Call it for what it also is this time. 

Genocide. 

But. 

The same people, the same system, are also coming for you: any difference can be fatal. And all differences can be constructed or dismantled. You...are not one of them, not even on the same ladder, really. So when you see that one group of people, Palestians are in the spotlight, being giddily, systematically ripped asunder in one horror scene after another yet... do and say nothing at all, let this repeated line sink: that same desperate, losing system is coming for you - and every thing of collective identity you have. Houses. Farms. Gold. Savings. Sexuality. Family. Stop retreating into a safey-safey group-presumptious putzy in-group story, cherry picking reality only as it serves, maybe loose a little or a lot of your hypocrisy and start figuring out how to allow for... much more kindness in the world.

Or don't complain when it happens, when it comes for you. For it very likely will unless stopped beforehand.

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For the portfolio update June 1: It's being consolidated increasingly to a less active deal, seeing if even without any AI-agent-type help it can be left mostly alone. As of the close today... both it and the S&P are up 14.1 % since the practice portfolio's April launch. Progress or curve of the porfolio has been astonishingly smooth. All but one long equity position is in green, all but one ETF the same but both hedges bought during these past few weeks are in the red. So.... that's 19 out of 23 currently.  I'll get to some more specifics tomorrow in part 2. 

(disclaimer: Note to anyone perusing: for now, I've none of these things - those who know me know the primary cause. He did actually steal literally every thing. Just suggestions these not advice and no conflicts of interest. For now. )

Vid 1: 

 

part 2