The Graeco-Roman myths give us far more understanding of how financial markets work than technical explanations. My new book, The Money Myth, gives you insight into both. Read this practical book and change your investing techniques for the better.
Numbers are the language of business but they can be spurious, and The Money Myth shows you how. The oracle in ancient Delphi was a clever fraud, giving prophesies that were ambiguous, or guesswork, or based on knowledge of what was likely. The forecasts of City analysts are similarly unreliable. |
Human behaviour is more certain. Investment banks treat retail investors in the same way as Pluto rapes Proserpine, carrying her off to hell. City stockbrokers are as charming as Circe, the witch in Homer’s Odyssey who plies her weary human victims with drugged wine before she turns them into pigs.
Nor can we trust the watchdogs. The UK’s new tripartite regulatory regime is soon to replace the old failed one, and it barks as loud as Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of classical mythology. This hound may similarly be placated by drugged sweet cakes.
Like the regulator, financial institutions reconstruct themselves. The large banks that helped cause the crisis typically stay in business. This is the secret of the City’s success. It is a version of the reincarnation, part of the ancient Greek culture, which tellingly demanded atonement for past sins.
Misinformation conceals the truth. The City uses public relations to spin its story, much like the sophists of fifth century Athens. The resulting news flow to investors, like the shadows shown to prisoners in the cave of Plato's The Republic, is a poor representation of reality.
The big and powerful survive in financial markets, and, in their anxiety to be part of it, investors buy into it. They are reluctant to cut losing positions, and minimise losses that way, a lesson that Odysseus teaches when he sacrifices some of his men to a man eating monster to get the rest of them to safety. This book shows you the old truths predominate in our world of algorithmic trading and Cloud computing, and informs you on the technologies.
Ancient philosophy and mythology help you to keep a cool head and invest more wisely when the modelling and numbers have failed. The Money Myth is a unique and powerful new tool to boost your market understanding and investment approach.
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