A Financial Word - Or Two - In Your Unregulated Ear

The Age

Monday November 10, 2008

DAVID JAMES - David James is a senior writer for BRW magazine and author of The Business Devil's Dictionary.

THINGS have been tough in the markets. But traders burned over the past year must realise that investing is like riding a horse. If you fall off, you just have to get back on.

Then you have to fall off again, break every bone in your body, discover that your health insurance is no good, declare yourself bankrupt and escape to a South American country that does not have an extradition treaty with Australia in a desperate bid to avoid the authorities. Simple, really. Here are some very simple words.

Customers

Customers have to make their own decisions. If they decide to go elsewhere, let them go. Because if they are really yours, they will soon come back.

And if they don't return, well, then you just have to accept it and start stalking them immediately. Or threaten to sue. Or make late-night nuisance calls, issue personal threats, do whatever it takes.

Over the counter

In unregulated markets, buying financial securities over the counter is just like what you do when you buy securities under the counter in regulated markets, except that it is legal because there are no laws, and therefore no possibility of breaking them.

Worship

Who said religion is dead? In the financial markets it is alive and well. Greed is not just good, it is God.

Ethics

The desperate pursuit of some way, any way, to justify unrestrained selfishness.

David James is a senior writer for BRW magazine and author of The Business Devil's Dictionary.

© 2008 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home