If you are a devout Christian or know some people who are, one of their traditions is to eat fish on Friday as a symbol of abstinence of eating meat – sheep, goat or beef. The author though about the eat fish on Friday and asked himself where did the fish come from and what fish were they eating and how did European society develop? The book Fish on Friday by Brain Fagan, Basic Books, NY, 2006 helps answers those questions. One of the many areas where Mr. Fagan’s book goes into are recipes for fish, which lead to part about the army. Over the generations, generals have often remarked a good army moves on its stomach or the men have to eat. An army on the move needs rations to supply the men. What does the army serve? What are the good square meals the officers and men are eating. After Cabot made the official discovery of the Grand Banks. the armies were eating cod from the Grand Banks. This means someone must control the distribution because armies buy food, they do not grow or process food. Using clues gain from the army can tell you which companies have a monopoly on supplying them and what types of foods the army is being supplied with. An interesting note in the book is the income from the fishing grounds off Newfoundland and New England provided more wealth to Europe than the gold from Mexico, which had made Spain the richest country in the world. Fish provided for the English empire.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, there are clues all around you to determine what is a good investment. Often times, the non sexy ones pay a similar return and perhaps better than the sexy ideas. Try to ground your ideas into long term profitable ones, rather than short term ones where you are always looking for the big gain to get you back into the game. If you are normal person and had to choose between fish or gold to invest, you will have a high tendency to favor gold, but reality is you would have made more money on the fish. What is in your portfolio?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions