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Freethought
Association of West Michigan
Meeting Minutes for March 26, 2003; #135
Topic:
Dow Jones 40,000
This meeting
took place on the one- week anniversary of The U.S. war campaign
in Iraq.
Basic information
summary: Meetings are held at the Yankee Clipper Library, 2025
Leonard NE, Grand Rapids. Meetings start at 7PM.
We continue
to gather after the regular meetings at Kurleys Korner on Michigan,
NE for libations, eats and social time. A room is reserved for
us there.
Members are
encouraged to suggest topics or speakers they would like to see
at future meetings and are always welcome to take the lead in
any presentations. Visit us on the web to find links to other
web pages and organizations of potential interest, for book offerings,
to join our e-mail discussion service (a joint venture of our
group and the Great Lakes Humanists), to post on our bulletin
board, review past minutes, peruse book recommendations, read
the writings of members, make suggestions or inquiries, and to
find out about events going on of significance to freethinkers.
www.freethoughtassociation.org or info@freethoughtassociation.org.
There are some exciting additions to the site in the works including
but not limited to a Freethought Family Section.
Drop us a
line or see Jeff S. if you want to request a copy of our Membership
Directory or wish to have your contact information added or for
corrections and updates to existing information.
We are entirely
funded through the generous donations of members. FAoWM is a non-profit
organization and all donations are tax deductible. Quarterly statements
and expense/ revenue summaries are made available.
Some upcoming
topics and events:
Jason and
Deanna Pittman continue to host the Freethought Movie Night. For
information contact Jason at 616-634-2471 or jpittman@backpacker.com.
The next one is on MARCH 30, 7PM, at the Pittman's house.
APRIL 9:
We welcome special guest speaker, Kimberly Blaker who will present
"The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America."
This is also the title of a book she coauthored and edited resulting
from her research into what Oxford University zoologist, Richard
Dawkins termed "America's Taliban."
APRIL 13
( 7PM) is the date for the next Freethought Movie Night. See above
for more on this.
APRIL 18-20th"
The American Atheists National Convention will take place in Chicago,
IL this year. For further information visit www.atheists.org/convention.
APRIL 23
at 5:30PM: FAoWM Board Meeting: Long Range Planning. All interested
members are welcome to attend this planning meeting that will
take place at Yankee Clipper Library an hour and a half before
the regular meeting that evening. The regular meeting topic at
7PM is "U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East" to be
presented by Keith St. Clair, Political Science Instructor at
GRCC and FAoWM member.
Rounding
out April is the next Freethought Movie Night on APRIL 27.
Other Items:
Jan Van Oosterhout has accepted the nomination to the FAoWM Board.
Welcome, Jan!
The Annual
Freethought Picnic location and date has been chosen. This year
it will be on Saturday, June 14 at Linus Palmer Park (1275 52nd
Street); Section "C" in Wyoming, MI. We have an Open
Shelter reserved for us located in a shady area near to Buck Creek,
play areas, rest rooms, hiking trails and with convenient parking
if you take the entry/exit on 52nd Street. We have the space reserved
for the day but the approximate time frame targeted is 10:30AM-5PM.
More info including further directions to follow.
The Michigan
Chapter of Camp Quest, a secular humanist youth camp, is becoming
a reality with a lot of dedicated involvement from interested
people. The planning meeting for it was on the Sunday prior to
this meeting in Okemos, MI. The first week of operation will be
August 2-9 at a YMCA campsite by Kalamazoo and Battle Creek.
One of our
members read pertinent portions of an article in Skeptic magazine
that examined many of the health benefits related to religious
faith as presented by a recent speaker to our group, Dr. Myers.
The report critically examined the basis for studies indicating
improved health and quick recovery times for people of faith as
well as positing other natural mechanisms and behavior tendencies
of this section of people that may provide additional or alternative
ways of looking at the results.
Our topic
for this meeting was "Dow Jones 40,000" presented by
FAoWM member and 45 year veteran Stockbroker, Bill Van Oosterhout.
He delivered this topic that is not generally linked in the general
public's mind with entertainment and a sense of fun in a highly
engaging manner and sprinkled liberally with humor.
His animated
presentation also made use of many props including various commodity
items and consumer goods. His daughter pinned a bill on him (I
believe the denomination was $20) and quipped that she felt like
Vanna White. He wore this throughout the talk to keep us mindful
that the stock exchange was about money, not about accruing or
directly moving the actual items of exchange.
Since we
were in the midst of a new war led by our country in Iraq, Van
Oosterhout talked about it from a financial perspective, using
the phrase: "…pigs feasting on the trough…"
to describe those profiting from this military approach in the
oil rich Middle East. Gigantic opportunities are there for "greedy,
avaricious" people out to make big money. Because of this
direct link to money as a motivating factor for our military involvement
in Iraq, our presenter said that the Pentagon officials should
be wearing folding money on their lapels in place of the American
flag pins they are always seen with now.
On the podium
was a stack of books gathered by Van Oosterhout. He held up one
after another, bearing titles with Dow Jones in it and numbers
of wide variance, including Dow Jones 100,000, and continuing
down to 36,000. Making a wavy line on the blackboard (peaks and
valleys), he declared that that was how the stock market looked;
it is not correctly represented in a static fashion in the financial
industry, but fluctuates actively. Each of the books he dismissed
dramatically by tossing them on the floor with the idea that they
were not worth the paper they were printed on.
We were entertained
by a number of stories and anecdotes throughout the presentation,
but nearly all related to his leitmotif that the key component
to making money in the stock market is to have a clear understanding
that there is a point in which you will sell. Holding onto stocks
for items you do not want, personally, to own in great abundance
serves no purpose. The value is derived only when one sells it,
garnering money, the medium of actual exchange. The products and
services are merely the means to the end of getting money-they
are not, in themselves, what one should be gathering up. While,
as he admitted, this seems to be fairly obvious, he gave example
after example of personal dealings over the years, as a stockbroker,
with people who failed to comprehend this essential piece of information-
to their detriment.
We were given
a litany of companies that were deemed as having enormous growth
potential and where one was deemed a fool not to invest in them,
only to see that they are either no longer in existence, absorbed
by a shrinking number of mega corporations or their stock value
is currently only a fraction of its value in its heyday. Some
of the companies mentioned were elevated to what he referred to
as mythic proportions. How is it that something-say a commodity-is
seen to be worth a daunting dollar amount one day, and the next
day, shares of this same stock are valued at only pennies? Again,
these are not fixed, intrinsically valued entities but items on
a wildly fluctuating, fluid and highly mutable exchange medium.
Since the value is not carved in stone, all sorts of influences-political,
social, environmental, etc., etc. can alter the monetary worth
dramatically and quickly. Even when a stock value seems destined
only to increase, we were reminded: "No tree grows to Heaven."
Another way
that our presenter showed us the arbitrary nature of the value
placed on items was with various crops. What is the worth of a
potato? In isolation, its intrinsic value is difficult to calculate
but when placed in the market it can become a commodity of great
worth or can be seen as having no value whatsoever. As to the
corporate control of exchange rates, he noted that even when certain
crops, or dairy or beef or whatever the farmer is raising are
valued very high, there is no concomitant surge in the number
of rich farmers.
Bill gave
us a brief history lesson of how the stock market came to be.
Whole items were sometimes too unwieldy an entity to buy outright,
especially when the outlay of funds was so large that such a large
investment of personal resources became too risky. But if one
bought into a portion of the item, a ship say, even if it sunk
at sea, one's investment was smaller-therefore the loss was less-than
if everything one had had gone into that venture.
Van Oosterhout
talked about price gouging and other exploitation that can be
seen and related this to times of war where it is especially pronounced.
War does not just distract the citizenry from a dismal economy
but also nullifies complaints regarding "sacrifices"
that have to be made during such times. Artificial inflation of
prices can be explained away due to the dynamics in the market
coming as a necessary side effect of the conflict. As to some
basic goods, such as cereal and candy bars, Bill examined with
us the relatively stable prices for ingredients that are generally
presented to the public as having gone up dramatically, thereby
justifying the large price increases to the consumer, as given
to us by the manufacturers.
The current
war we are engaged in, with its tremendous expense in the waging
of it and more to come in the aftermath, at a time when our economy
is so burdened is a frightening thing and Bill proclaimed that
we are on a collision course due to this juncture. The debt keeps
climbing and whatever is not paid for now will have to be paid
later-it does not evaporate. He said that this is the time where
taxes should be raised to help offset costs but the reverse is
the course undertaken by the Administration. The money has to
come from somewhere. He stated that this will likely result in
a crescendo and then a major backlash.
Bill's advice
for those who perpetrate the great corporate scandals that we
hear about with some frequency now: Freeze their assets. He observed
that they would suffer more at the hands of their family members
who suddenly were bereft of the good life than they would in a
jail cell. When one talks of corporate fraud and scandals some
specific names and companies spring to mind readily but our speaker
said how widespread this is in reality and gave many less-known
examples of large- scale offenses.
While Van
Oosterhout had discarded many of the financial advice books and
gave short shrift to a large number of financial consultants,
a book he held up for its wisdom was the Alice and Wonderland
stories in Through the Looking Glass. He read a couple passages
regarding words meaning what the speaker intends them to mean,
idiosyncratically, not what the listener believes them to mean.
Another passage was about a subject being queried as to who had
been seen along the road. When the reply was "No one"
the questioner marveled at the wonderful eyesight of someone who
could see no one!-and at such great distance! He used this bizarre
thinking as an introduction to a display of many investment schemes
and putative money making ventures out there. When critically
examined the hoopla becomes rather humorous- but many people are
ensnared in just such false-hope offering schemes. Another book
that has much to offer in its ability to pull the curtain back
from the "wizard" that he presented was Extraordinary
Delusions and the Madness of the Crowds.
Another iconoclastic
assertion Bill made was that the renowned Wall Street Journal
was a worthless newspaper to buy, declaring that they made no
effort to translate yesterday's news into what can be utilized
wisely today. The publication he does recommend is Financial Times,
because it tells stories of how to actually make money, with real
examples and about what is really going on.
He railed
against the absurdity of much of the Dow Jones index as well.
One of the things he noted in this regard was that companies such
as Coke and Disney among others are listed as "Industrial
Companies" thus making a mockery of the list when it has
actual industrial concerns listed alongside them.
Van Oosterhout
reflected on the U.S. being the biggest debtor nation in the world
and Japan, conversely, being the largest creditor. "What
happens when they want their money back?" he asked. He posited
some other geopolitical observations at this time as well.
We were presented
with many examples of foresight and ingenuity by certain individuals
and companies who saw a way to take something unwanted, demeaned
or undervalued and rework it into something viable and as a tremendous
source of revenue. Often, because the company possessed a surplus
of something that was an unwanted side effect of the major operation,
they would put forth the effort and expense of shipping it to
the company who saw how to turn a profit with it. Sometimes commodities
are seen as less valuable for very emotional reasons-one example
being waste material. Such things get passed up as opportunities
when juxtaposed against more emotionally attractive things like
high tech items. But, as Bill's mantra has it: it is not the item
but the money that is derived from the exchange of it that counts.
When questioned about the emphasis he places on selling, he gave
an example of putting money into real estate. If you own fifteen
houses that you have to maintain, where does that get you? But
if you sell them at a profit you make money---some of which can
go into future purchases…so long as you make a plan to sell
those too!
The American
health care system was discussed. Bill sees this as an ever- growing
area of disparity between the haves and have-nots in society as
to care. A health care plan for all Americans is not getting much
traction these days. It was mentioned that about half the money
that was to go to medical research went to advertising instead.
We talked
about being aware of "insider" patterns and about many
less-evident areas of investment where opportunities were to be
had but how these had to be investigated with creativity and foresight
to perceive their potential through the thicket of the more obvious
ventures.
Secretary:
Charles LaRue
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