This a personal note to anyone that is an email subscriber to this blog, or if you just happened to click a link and wind up here. If you aren’t a subscriber, feel free to subscribe and follow me on Twitter @pointsnfigures1. I am on other social media platforms @pointsnfigures, but never really go there anymore.
I have been an Epoch Times subscriber since the newspaper started. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I dislike the mainstream media. Epoch was built as an antithesis to the mainstream. You get the story straight. No spin. My friend Roger Simon introduced me to the paper years ago.
I will start writing periodic pieces for their site that won’t be on this blog. You’d have to subscribe to the Epoch Times to read them. I thought about doing a pay-for model on this blog, but it didn’t sit well with me. There are a lot of customer acquisition costs that happen and I think it changes how you view your blog and the interaction. When I write for them, you will see the first paragraph of whatever it is, then you will have to switch to their site to read it.
I am not going to charge for this blog. I like the freemium format and I appreciate all the comments that happen. Would even love to see you start commenting if you haven’t. We’d all learn from you. Lately, many people have hit the “pledge” button and I have seen pledges come through if I were to charge for it. I really appreciate it and if you haven’t done that but want to feel free. As I said, I won’t be charging but it does give me feedback that what’s here is at least not just an exercise. Some value is being created somehow.
I have written stuff in past years for Medium, Pajamas Media, American Thinker, Crain’s, Chicago Tribune, and other publications, but I never got paid for it. That’s why I stopped doing it and just did it on my blog. If it’s free, why not just do it here?
I am thinking of starting a podcast. I did some podcasts for TopStepTrader a few years ago. It was fun but the podcasts I was doing didn’t fit with TopSteps goals. They wanted more technical trading podcasts, and the ones I did were not that. As a matter of fact, our most listened-to one was with Alan Mathews. He traded grains at the CBOT and invested in Chicago startups. But he became a shaman, did hallucinogens in Central America, and was a part of Burning Man in Nevada! Would love to know if you’d be interested in listening to a podcast if I did one. Let me know in the comments. I’d also be interested in hearing what topics you’d be interested in listening to.
I used to do some television for business stations. There were parts of doing “hits” that I enjoyed. But, I didn’t enjoy doing it when the producers of the shows would try and control what was said. I never received any pay for doing it, and I never monetized it. As a capitalist, that never sat well with me but at the same time, I appreciated getting the experience and learning.
So many people I see that host television shows on the right and left, or are guests on those shows are there for “the grift”. They write books or have a ghostwriter write books with their photo and name slapped on them just to sell them. They don’t have anything meaningful to say or any real insight into anything. They use their media platforms as soapboxes with megaphones to shout. There is little interaction and they aren’t really good listeners. I am reading Winston Churchill’s books about WW2 and there is such a difference in tone and substance compared to some of the “current event” books I see being pushed today.
I am starting to write some books. Interestingly, they won’t be about current events but about life on the trading floor. It was such a different life. Those that were on the floor know. Most of the stories you hear about Wall Street or trading are all about sex, drinking, drugs, hookers, dwarf tossing, and rock and roll. However, those of us that were there know some of that existed but there are plenty of other things to write about which are not only illuminating about what daily floor life was like but are funny too. That era of life in finance is gone, and so like David Attenborough and the dinosaurs, I am trying to write about it. I will be charging for those books but we are a long, long way from that. I have written the first one. It’s about two guys who meet on the floor and get into a “situation”.
I am looking for a real editor to edit my writing and give me honest feedback. Writing a book is different than writing a blog because it cannot be a stream of consciousness. There is some discipline that happens. I create and edit this blog. That’s why there are mistakes. In a book, there is a story arc, characters, character development, and other things that you learned in high school English writing themes.
If you have a connection to a good editor that can help me, and help me get it published I would appreciate an introduction.
It’s a rare rainy gray day here in the desert. It’s a good day for some introspection. I did some yoga this morning and thought I’d write this blog to get some input.
Yeah those two were characters for sure, and with Silverman's orders they could make a guy squirm if they wanted you to.
No one writes better about the old trading floors and the city of Chicago that grew them. Now off to subscribe to Epoch Times.