We all have them. The trick is recognizing them and making proper use of them. Have a typical sample:
I was reminded of the debt slavery system last week when I fully paid off an account and the next day got a warning that paying the account off was going to drop my credit score.
— Rae ❤️🔥 (@FiatLuxGenesis) November 9, 2025
They don't want you to pay off debts, they want you to just manage it.
This woman was “clued in” by an institution that had been profiting from her indebtedness. Not everyone is that fortunate. Perhaps she had a subliminal instant of “What if everyone?” – that quick, massively disturbing recognition of a pattern previously uncontemplated. It happens now and then, even to people barely conscious of their own existences.
Patterns exist because of the commonalities among us. We all hunger. We all want. We all fear. We all respond to “carrots and sticks:” incentives and disincentives. He who detects a strong motivator, shared widely among us, that he can exploit has taken his first step toward wealth, power, fame, or all three.
Sometimes that recognition carries another in its wake.
Professional money managers learn things about the ebb and flow of investment that most people never realize. This is something of an “of course” matter; one couldn’t make a living managing others’ assets without some amount of special knowledge. Yet bits of that knowledge are useful to the rest of us as well. One such item is this: Contrarians nearly always make money.
The contrarian, in the equities markets, is one who studies market behavior for its current trends, and then deliberately plays against them. Everyone is buying? The contrarian sells. Everyone is selling? The contrarian buys. Given the old aphorism that “The trend is your friend,” how does that work?
A trend is a temporary thing. “Trees do not grow to the sky,” as Baron de Rothschild has told us. Every trend will end at some point. While it lasts, its dynamism provides opportunities to those with available capital. The key question is how the current trend will end.
Take an arbitrary equity: say, the stock of that perennial titan of American industry, Acme Corp. Is it going up, perhaps propelled by some dramatic recent development? If contrarian Smith already has some Acme stock, he’ll sell at a point where its price reflects an unusually high price-to-earnings ratio (P/E). That way, when Acme peaks and falls back toward a historically stable P/E, Smith can buy it back. That gives him both a profit on the sale plus continuing returns on Acme shares.
The same applies if Acme is “in trouble:” that is, if its share price is declining. Smith waits until Acme is significantly below its historic P/E, then buys. When Acme rebounds, he can profit by selling. (A “value investor” such as Warren Buffet might choose to hold the stock instead.)
The contrarian’s assets are patience, liquid capital, and confidence that “the trend will end,” usually without taking all his money with it. And he nearly always profits.
“Don’t run with the herd” is advice frequently given to young people by their parents and other respected advisors. It’s hard advice to follow. There’s always that suspicion that “the herd” knows something you don’t. That might be true... but going in the opposite direction is more likely to get young Smith something his contemporaries will not.
“The herd” tends to conceal the identities and characteristics of those in it. We see the rushing crowd; we overlook the individuals. That’s no way to attract the attention of others with something special to offer. If you want to be noticed, run the other way.
Several patterns are current among young Americans. Nearly all young adults borrow, thus shackling themselves to an obligation that will last several years. Why? They want something: a house, a car, a vacation, or some other expensive item. But whatever it is, they seldom need it. And since they’ve borrowed to “afford” it; they’re committed to paying more for it than its nominal purchase price. Young contrarian Smith lives beneath his means, saves his money, and waits until he can afford what he wants without paying interest.
Young Americans today “play around” for years before choosing a mate and “getting settled.” That’s herd behavior too; it’s fueled in part by sexual hunger and in part by the subconscious need to “have someone.” Young Smith, who wants to be noticed and desired by a truly exceptional young woman, keeps himself to himself. Oh, he socializes, but he doesn’t date a lot of women, and he certainly doesn’t “sleep around.” The young women who know him will take notice. It will intrigue them... much to his benefit.
It’s practically self-explanatory. The exceptional are those whose behavior is exceptional: the contrarians! They don’t “run with the herd;” they note which way the herd is going and run the other way. And they almost always derive an exceptional benefit from doing so.
Of course, being part of “the herd” does confer something as well. Many people actively want the anonymity, the obscurity, and the freedom from independent judgment that come from losing oneself in the crowd. But those are drives I don’t share.
