Oct

26

Here's Old Man Cutten's short book "Story of a Speculator." Cutten was bigger than life and was arguably the biggest individual wheat speculator in history. There are so many market and life lessons contained within, and it gives a glimpse of what the grain trade was like a century ago. His market lessons contained in this short read became my lessons when I was first starting out. His comments on liberty, government, and choices are priceless. So much of this is relevant today, which is an added bonus.

Stef Estebiza adds:

"None can dictate prices who cannot control production" -Arthur Cutten

Not all of what you see is GOLD.

Read to the end of the first page and the start of the second in "The Parable of the Rich Fool"

Larry Williams writes:

That widely circulated epitaph of speculators misses some key points as it did with Cutten.

Henry A. Wallace, the then United States Secretary of Agriculture charged Cutten with improper trading activities and tried to have him barred from trading on all futures exchanges in the United States. This ultimately went to the US Supreme Court in the case of Wallace v. Cutten, 298 U.S. 229 (1936) (decided in Cuttens favor over the issue "was Cutten guilty for violating laws that were passed—after—the acts of commerce/speculation were commited).

The government then went after him for income tax evasion. The tax suit would only be settled by the executors of his estate, because Arthur Cutten, his fortune vastly depleted by the stock market crash and the cost of lawyers to defend him from the government lawsuits, died in Chicago of a heart attack a few weeks short of his sixty-sixth birthday. His body was brought back to his Canadian birthplace and interred in the family plot in Guelph's Woodlawn Cemetery.

So we have gummint guys going after evil speculator and breaking the poor fellow. I'm certain Soros learned from this which explains is ability to fund politicians.

Most folks live for today or in the past, speculators live for and wager on the future. They are the builders of the future.


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2 Comments so far

  1. jeff on October 26, 2015 2:27 pm

    Editor, please fix a misquote. Stefan Jovanovich didn’t post the Parable of the Rich Fool, it was the other Stef, the one who posts questionable links, untested opinions, brings religion to the dinner party, and gives Rocky apoplexy.

  2. Mike Kaminsky on October 28, 2015 8:52 am

    Thanks for Posting Jeff. Ill enjoy reading it.

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