Reading: Nathaniel Popper's "The Trolls of Wall Street"

"The Trolls of Wall Street" is less interesting for its exploration of the WallStreetBets phenomenon but far more interesting for the glimpses it gives of people living their entire social lives online and being much more interested in chasing money and "disruption" than they are in actually improving upon the entities they regard as corrupt and in need of disruption.

Distrust of mainstream media -- well earned, given mainstream media screw-ups, agenda-pushing and the like -- led to increased trust in social media, which Popper points out is even more ripe for screw-ups and agenda-pushing than the mainstream could ever hope or fear to be.

Distrust of the big Wall Street firms, also well earned, led to increased trust in the likes of Robinhood, which, per Popper, so poorly understood the industry it was disrupting they were confused as to what laws they'd broken when they were fined by government regulators.

And these little zealots have now been unleashed on government, God help us all. Too busy distrusting and "disrupting" that they're not pausing for a nanosecond to learn exactly what it is they're doing and what their activity will lead to.

Tears and revolution, most likely.

So read this book and weep for the species at large.

I wrote about the book here and here as well. Highly recommended reading (the book, not necessarily my posts).

Book Review: Number Go Up, by Zeke Faux

 

I wandered over to Goodreads to read reviews of Zeke Faux's "Number Go Up," and I was not disappointed to find one reviewer who accused Faux of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

I knew there were going to be crypto bros or at least bro-adjacent reviews of the book, and there it was in all its glory. One star.

The reviewer decried Faux's lack of looking at how crypto were helping the poors -- pretty much glossing over how crypto wasn't helping the poors at all as reported in Faux's book.

And yeah, I don't really see banks helping the poors either. Banks are a sucky system. But after reading Faux's book, I don't expect crypto is any better. In fact, with the slavery, human trafficking and fraud that appears rampant in the crypto-adjacent world, it's probably a worse system.

I can't even type out the sentence "Maybe they started crypto with altruistic motives" without laughing inside. Because no, they're in it for the money. I mean, they can say they want to help the poor, but Faux provides ample example that no, the poors are getting screwed by crypto just as they are by the banks.

We'd all be better off investing in Homer's pumpkin futures than in fake money.

If you're going to this book to learn about crypto, you're not the audience for it. Faux admits his crypto knowledge is pretty basic, and admits that for most of us -- especially those of us who FUD all over the place -- the details are unimportant. What's important are the scams, the scamps, the idiocy and the altogether terrible things that crypto are enabling.

And yes, there are frauds and schemers in regular business too; I won't deny that. But the majority of that is happening in a regulated world. Crypto, not for me.

A note on style: Each chapter ends with a "cliffhanger" for the next chapter, making me wonder if Faux attended the Louis L'Amour School of Writing.

Christmas Read: Number Go Up, by Zeke Faux

Michelle got me a copy of this book for Christmas, and it's been a wild read, cementing my preference to invest in Homer Simpson's pumpkin futures long before putting a penny into cryptocurrency.

This bit from the chapter titled "Ponzinomics" sums up a lot of what it takes to combat falsehoods in the Internet Age.

The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

~Alberto Brandolini, Italian computer programmer

Afraid of . . . PARENTS!

There's a lot to unpack here.

Millionares, many of them, wandering the face of the earth, feeling unfilfilled.

Millionaires, many of them, not charging what they're worth.

Millionaires, many of them, held back by some kind of wealth-inhibiting trauma that occurred to them LIKELY BEFORE THE AGE OF SEVEN.

What could it be?

Well, pay $97 for a "five-day intensive" that'll get you to the root of your trauma, likely through pop psychology, pseudo-gobbledygook and the realization that if YOU FAIL to find that trauma, it's your fault and there will be no refunds and you will continue to wander the planet, spenging money a-jingling in your jeans, feeling unfulfilled.

And you don't even have C. Montgomery Burns to blame for it.

There's a lot of this crap on Facebook. Probably more for me because it fascinates me and I click on things and go to websites, whether I feel financially fulfilled or not. They're making money telling others how to make money. They do it on the cheap (see the "discounted" $97 fee above) but apparently get a lot of pigeons to swallow it because if it weren't working for them they'd be doing something else entirely.

Also, what the hell kind of trauma can happen to a soul before the age of seven that would cause hindrances in the financial area? Oh, I'm sure they find things. But will the things they find make any sense?

Collect Underpants . . . Rich Dad, Poor Dad . . . ?. . . Profit!

Through the mere act of writing about books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” in a negative manner, I instantly fulfill the prophecies of individuals like Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter (this book’s authors) and their adherents.

By leveling any criticism at such books, those who believe them can automatically say, “Well, since you don’t believe, you’ll never accomplish what the books say you can. The failure is entirely at your feet.”

Maybe that’s right.

And maybe that’s a load of barnacles.



Because if we’re honest about it, any dismissal, any failure, any result that does not end in adherents’ retirement at an early age with pots of money, is a failure, according to this book. We weren’t smart enough. We weren’t as open to risk as we should have been. We’re suckers.

And maybe we are.

Then again, maybe we’re not.

But right now I’m withholding judgment. Because with these books, it’s easy to say dammit this isn’t anything I can do and walk off, not realizing you might already be doing part of it and doing more might not be all that difficult.

As far as I’ve read, the ideas presented herein aren’t on the surface, all that complicated. Have more assets than liabilities is the basic tenet. And know how to tell an asset from a liability.

If you own a home but you’re still paying a mortgage on it, that’s a liability.

Those solar panels on the rooftop? Make damn sure they’re paying for themselves, and that you get the loan you took out to install them paid off as quickly as they can so they can get moved to the asset column, rather than remain as a liability.

There is some good advice to be found. For a long time, it sounded like these folks were saying “Go start your own business.” But that’s not necessarily the case. If you want to, start your own business. But be ready for failure, because they acknowledge most new businesses end in the ashcan.

So what are assets, per these dweebs? Here’s the list:

1. Businesses you personally don’t have to run (if you do, that’s a job, not an asset, which seems kinda weird.)
2. Stocks
3. Bonds
4. Mutual funds
5. Income-generating real estate
6. IOUs
7. Royalties from intellectual property
8. Anything else that has value, produces income, or appreciates and has a ready market.

So, was Homer right all along?

Still, I’m reminded of this:

So, sucker, you may ask. Doing any of this? Or are you going to be a corporate slave for the rest of your unnatural life?

Am doing some. What I am doing is my own business. I will share a little.

Remember those solar panels? Thanks to government tax incentives, we’ve paid down nearly a third of the loan. We also signed up with the solar company on the last day they were offering to make our loan payments for the first eighteen months. They said many people would take the tax money, or the loan payment money, and fritter it away on other stuff, but we rolled it all back into the loan, along with additional money of our own to pay down that principal. And while teething pains in the first year didn’t show us the promised 100% reduction in our electric bill, we haven’t had to pay for electricity since February. (Contrary to what the solar company told us, the panels will not produce any electricity if they’re covered in snow, so keep that in mind when you’re contemplating doing solar on your own.)

Also, paying for tax software for the 2018 tax year paid off, getting us deductions I thought weren’t possible or that we’d have to spread out over more than one tax year. That $50 spent on Quicken was money well-spent, and I’ll do it again. Maybe. Maybe I learned enough for 2018 that I can save that money for 2019. We’ll see. Still beats paying a professional to do it.

I’m hoping the authors get to the nuts and bolts of collecting enough money to find and grow assets. Because I’m pretty certain that’s where most people fail.

And it’s clear Kiyosaki has his critics, including his co-author, who sued him over something. And apparently his book became a best-seller partly because he got hooked up with Amway.

No surprise to find some of his critics selling their own books. But there’s a lot of good reading here.

Purple Squirrel Doesn't Stand Out

A few caveats here: I'm a Wally personality. You know Wally, from Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip. He believes, among other things, that God created the world because he hates people and that coffee tastes better if you stir it with your finger. He prefers inertia to action. And thought I do a hell of a lot more work than Wally does because I actually enjoy what I do and want to keep on getting paid to do it, I've got to admit that when it comes to job-seeking and career advice, I'm more likely to turn to the likes of Wally, Dr. Peter Hull, and Stanley Bing than earnest go-getters like Michael Junge.

There will be many who like this book. That's fine. I'm not one of them.

I guess I'm more of a fatalist/realist who sees more truth in the works of Barbara Ehrenreich when it comes to finding jobs in modern America. I went through a stage of underemployment starting on April Fools Day 2005 (it lasted for just over a year) so I'm not just whistling Dixie when it comes to this review. Junge is very keen on helping you find a job with a Fortune 500 company and offers some sound career advice, but I've got to admit the advice he offers isn't all that extraordinary -- I've read similarly powerful stuff in ehow articles. So I'm glad I got this book for free.

The book lacks a certain professionality, which surprised me, considering how much Junge insists we put our best foot forward. There are myriad copy editing mistakes that a geek like me notices instantly. And there's a certain lack of humanity throughout the book. Junge doesn't even explain the title -- which despite its clear meaning in the recruiting world, tells the average reader nothing because we're not able to marvel at the jargon. A Purple Squirrel, for the uninitiated, is a job description written so narrowly it's difficult to find the right candidate to fit it. Junge never explains the term and only uses it once, in the conclusion. Where he could have use the term to add some personality to the book as a whole, he leaves it as an opportunity wasted.

Gordon MacKenzie, Creative Paradox

I’d never heard of Gordon MacKenzie before I read “Orbiting the Giant Hairball,” his compact little book on business philosophy, and I’ll be darned if I can find out much about him on the Internet now, but I’d like to meet the guy.

He thinks it’s fine, for example, to say at work that sometimes the job is easy. That doesn’t mean it’s a simple job, or that it’s a job not worth doing, but that the person doing it has the facility – the genius – to do it and to do it well in a way that to them seemed nearly effortless. That beats the drive-yourself-until-you’re-dead mentality, or, as he puts it:

What the solution delivers – if we buy into it – is a workplace where the quality of life is continually eroded by contrived travail.

Wouldn’t a more promising choice be
To turn your back
On the
Overwork-as-an-end-in-itself Game

And instead
Enlist the hidden genius within you
And develop the skills to play like a champion?

Of course, even my sad little text rendition of his words don’t do them justice. I’ll include a scan:

Used under the fair use doctrine for commentary purposes.

You can probably tell by now that this isn’t your standard-issue business book. That’s what makes it so enjoyable. What this is, is a guide for the corporate gadfly, the creative genius, the worker with an idea who can’t get it out of the bureaucracy and into the real world, to navigate the “hairball” – the nest of policies, official rules, accountancy, drudgery and grey blahdom that make up many corporations.

What I find most appealing about MacKenzie’s approach is that he gears it not only for the creative genius – the corporate asshat, as regarded by many – but also for the more ordinary “genius” who has a good idea on how to make something at work go better but needs strategies on escaping the bureaucracy to make that idea come to pass. He also reveals how, at times, even in his own position as a guide to creative genius, sometimes he nearly became entangled in the hairball himself.

He makes apt criticisms of corporate structure that may organize things perfectly but often stifle natural collaboration because one department is cordoned off from the other. At the same time, he recognizes the hidebound necessity for order; he’s not one of those genius types who wants to create without recognizing that creation can be profitable or that organizations exist only to thumb the nose at them:

The escape from habitual culture must always be temporary if you wish to be permitted back into the culture . . .

Yes, you may go out and play; but you must be home by dinnertime.

However, temporary as these Orbits out of the Hairball may be, they are expeditions that promise finding in the chaos beyond culture antidotes for the stagnation of the status quo.

More sage advice:

Any time a bureaucrat
(i.e., a custodian of a system)
Stands between you
And something you need or want,
Your challenge is to help that bureaucrat
Discover a means,
Harmonious with the system,
To meet your need.

That’s what MacKenzie calls dynamic following – it’s not giving in without hope to the Hairball as the denizens of Scott Adams’ cynical world do all too often; it’s finding ways to orbit the hairball, doing your work in a way that helps release your genius, your creativity, while still producing what the Hairball wants, because they’re the ones paying you.