In 2009 George Clooney made a movie called The Men Who Stare at Goats which was based on a book by the same name written by Jon Ronson published by Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, NY, 2004. The story is a high ranking general in the US Army embraced the New Age creativity and wanted to see if it would work within the Army. The unit chosen was the Special Forces and they were to get in touch with their inner feelings, use their psychic powers (or be trained in them) and stare at animals in an effort to kill them. The general had seen and heard about the New Age and people around the United States were paying money to go retreats to come out as a better person. If you put them in context of the normal type of command driven structure of the army, then you begin to wonder what were they thinking? However, in all organizations somebody needs to look outside of their organization to see if other methods can be effective.

For example, if you went shopping in a mall, there tends to be one particular background music which is suppose to keep you in the mood to shop. It would be reasonable to consider if there was music to sooth the enemy or make them more vulnerable to gaining information from them. If someone has a true ability which could help your side and make the war end faster then it is worth considering. The book tries to understand what the army was trying to do since one of objectives was to walk through a wall. 99.9999% of us have to use a door.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, there are many theories about life and how to invest some seem as wacky as walking through walls, but every theory depending on the timing can work for a while. Over the long term there tends to be much easier methods – the main reason index funds work is the bottom performing companies are taken out and replaced by top performing companies; investing in dividends means buying profitable companies – over the long run the combination of the dividends and the stocks trading at a higher multiple or PE Ratio will result in wealth creation. Every once in a while it is important to be open to weird ideas, but try not to stray too far away from the simple and easiest methods.

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