Critiques of the Business of Investing & Money Management

 For a long time, I have been hesitant and unable to offer my deep felt understanding and opinion of the Financial Industry. It might be that now, after being married to someone who doesn't trust Financial Advisors, someone who I met when I had hung up that hat to pursue practical, physical skills and knowledge as an Electrician. I dont hate that I went to college and learned Finance and Investments. Business Management, Accounting, Marketing, Professional Communications, Business Law, and them any other Financial, Risk Management, Real Estate, and global economics courses helped chisel my persona into who I am. Without that sacrifice perhaps the ability to start a business and see it through wouldn't be (existant). I'm thankful that I tried. Because if I hadn't I'd always be wondering, agonizing and tormenting my brain and existence for not even trying to reach my potential. I now know that if I wanted to, I could be successful in the financial services industry under the banner of a large firm, if I sacrificed my ethics and morals. Compromising my true self. 

But my potential in the financial services industry was always boxed in and cornered by my ethics and morals. So I became successful on my own. Having my own firm was always the goal. No more sales quotas or goals to get n amount of door knocks or cold calls. True organic growth. 

For reference, let's look at this facebook post of mine from Jan 16th, 2012:

Dedication, perseverance, integrity, honesty, faithfulness, loyalty. These are words to strive to live by every. single. day.

Do you think Abraham Lincoln would have achieved his dreams if he had not been dedicated and taken the day off because he "felt bad"?

Would Napoleon Bonaparte have become so renowned had he not persevered because he "woke up on the wrong side of the bed"?

Would we be relaxing on Martin Luther King day if he had not been the same man behind closed doors as he was in front of millions of people?

Jesus would not be considered our savior if he had told lies.

What would we say about Mother Theresa or Padre Pio had they not been loyal to their cause?

Every day we wake up and face challenges that we don't want to deal with, that make life more difficult, or encourage us to give up. The things we want in life aren't going to come easy. We will be forced to fight for these things several times. We will be forced to stand up for what we believe in. We will be ridiculed because we may take it one step too far. Remember we have to step up for what we want, but also remember: Doing nothing has its consequences too.

Some believe in fate or destiny, I don't because I don't like the thought that I'm not in control of my future.

Wake up and live by these words: honesty, integrity, perseverance, faithfulness, honor, loyalty, and dedication. Never give up, never back down.

 I hope this helps give you perspective into who I was and aspiring to be, vs the decade plus of wisdom gained between that authoring and the following:

After wrapping up my annual compliance call, whether or not I delist (unregister) as an IAR and just be an Investment Adviser I'm still subject to the new CE rules for IA's in TN this year.

I am no longer actively growing Caelian Capital Strategies, all efforts will be focused on managing it as a fund. I have found that my experience in the markets has led to some incredible gains for my clients and I.

I was trying to exit the industry because of it's slow adoption of crypto and seeming manipulation of the vast majority of the population, advising them to stay away and not invest in crypto while the very CEO's and various upper echelon employees were secretly purchasing various crypto's - the one's that are now known as Stablecoins.

I'm not a conspiracy theorists, but if I were, I'd say that's gotta be one. What the heck do I know, I just helped a client double their pension during covid and a few more 5x to 8x their portfolios.

As I entered a new season of serving others, I realized my potential for the blue collar world & it's seamless fit to the many facets of my hardworking, get the job done personality. I already had the solution to the equation, I just had to solve backwards. It was just a long time before I realized to try it from another angle. Whether it's a career, friendships, a hobby, or anything this rich life has to offer - I always view things from an odd perspective. It wasnt until that equation was solved that I realize how thankful I am to have always been the weird one, to feel like I never fit in. I always wanted that, to be popular. But now I realize my strategy is me. It's how I've always been. It's what's led to my success in almost everything I put my mind to whether it was fitness, sports, diet, electrical, business, artistic, writing, gaming, and investing. The strategy is all part of the extrapolations of the Latticework I've crafted into my "mental Mansion"

That strategy is the same one I've been crafting and honing for decades, since I was 14, really.

Now there is CE for Crypto and we all saw the recent news for Bitcoin and government approval. Now that crypto ETF's are mainstream I am committing myself to maintaining a stable role as an Investment Advisor, not a Financial Advisor, to my friends and family plus anyone else who reach out for advice in this ever digitizing landscape that is our world.

There are many opportunities headed our way to 3x, 5x, 10x our money, we just have to be patient, honest, reflect, and implement certain timeless strategies. Most of which involve patience.

Whenever you're ready to jump in on the game, I'm here. Just commanding the ship and managing the fund, if you want in, let me know.

Some of those very same words have been words embedded into the foundation of my Businesses that I start. If it doesn't have some element of any of those values, it's not honorable to pursue. Centuries of history show that there are those who will warp and twist the reality of others for a quick sale. 

I know that's why, deep down, I would never succeed, truly succeed and be honorable to my true self, at a big firm. They violate far too many of these timeless ethics & do so behind the veil of compliance and regulation. In the Alchemy of Finance, George Soros references beating the regulators, but they eventually catch up, so you must stay ahead of them. What he means is, there's a cat and mouse game. Anything the government regulates, ultimately, ends up withering. So while the regulated game only allows most of the population to garner a paltry 8%-10% annualized return becomes a victim of the law of averages. But if you're ahead of regulation, that's where the profit is to be made. Unprecedented events. For us it is crypto. 

Once the regulators catch up to the instrument, the instrument is slowed, regulated, and handicapped in the name of equity and fairness. & since the majority of people dont invest, this removes it form the hands of the intelligent few to the masses. My only regret is not being able to invest my clients money into crypto. It took seeking out an International brokerage just to beat the U.S.'s dinosaur reaction speeds and even then the regulations prevented the majority of my clients from realizing any upside.

Charlie Munger's quote regarding Money Managers (read: Financial Advisors) sums up my entire internal reasoning for the feeling of malaise toward the title "Financial Advisor":

"The general systems of money management require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a terrible way to spend your life, but it's well paid."

He then goes on to criticize the majority of mutual funds & states Index funds are better. Munger then cites a Mutual Fund scandal in which portfolio managers were taking bribes to betray their shareholders.

So I say, we have movies like Wolf of Wallstreet, Boiler Room, the Big Short, and even Wall Street - it's not so hard to see why the whole career choice is a scam. That's why it never felt right to me. I just wanted to analyze companies and not need some special course or test or license that says Im qualified (read: regulated) to do. But I have to, so I do. All I want to do is help everyone to see what I see and have the option to join the game. It's all fiat currency anyway.

So when I read Charlie Munger's criticism of Wall Street:

"The ethics of Wall Street always average out to mediocre at best. That doesn't mean there aren't wonderful, intelligent people on Wall Street - but everyone I know has to fight their own firm to do the right thing.

The general culture of investment banking has deteriorated over the years. Bankers used to rigorously screen potential investors to protect their clients. 

The culture now is that anything that can be sold for a profit will be. "Can you sell it?" is the moral test, and that's not an adequate test."

That's why it always confused my why the commissions were higher on certain mutual funds or insurance products for the firms that I worked for. That kind of ethical thinking just doesnt survive the industry's acid test. I was burned alive.

Anyway, I'm interested to see what happens to crypto and government in this digital landscape. Suddenly VR and other immersible alternate living experiences are becoming one step closer to being accessible by all. We are going to see some interesting cultural updates now that the US Gov is on board with crypto.

I also think there's going to a divergent society and a social crisis to expose it. I sense a "flight to quality" of sorts aided by technology. Interesting developments for society are coming