You can lose it all as well. Markets are emotional creatures, and more than one trader has lost his shirt over what should have been a sure-fire deal. They say you can't make money until you know how to lose it -- and the road to the top is never a smooth line. Greed brings out the worst in people, and your reputation is the only currency that really matters. This time five years from now, you can be on a beach in the Caribbean or under sharing a barrel under the George Washington bridge. Either way, it's going to be a hell of a ride. But first you need to move out of your parent's house.

Invest in some goddamn linebreaks holy shit.

ASSET CLASSES
While you're familiar with all mainstream asset classes, you've developed an interest and specialty around several in particular. Please select two -- you'll be given a more detailed explanation as to the two classes you pick.
Equities
Welcome to the stock market, don't mind the crazy-as-fuck cokeheads shouting until they're hoarse. Well it used to be like that, now everyone's just sitting at computers. Still a lot of coke though. Equities are shares of ownership in a publicly-listed company, with a fixed value as appraised by the stock exchange the company belongs to. The idea's quite simple: every company has a listed price, reflecting the demand and availability of that company's stock. The more people want it, the more it's worth. Buy low, sell high. Thing is, there's a bit more to it than that.

Bonds
Ugh. I fucking hope you like excel charts. Bonds are loans issued typically to either a country (known as "sovereign bonds") or a corporation ("corporate bonds"). Unlike loans to you and me, however, there isn't any kind of monthly interest that needs to be paid -- instead, you get something like an IOU with a timestamp. Here's an example: Current US 10 year treasury bonds are at 2.51% -- meaning, if you loan Uncle Sam 100 bucks right now, you'll get an IOU slip saying he promises to give you $102.51 this time in 2024. Now that percentage is really fucking low because everyone trusts the good ol' USA (way more complicated than that, not explaining it right now); India's 10 year is sitting at a pretty 8.5% because no one fucking knows what India will look like in 10 years and whether it'll actually be able to pay back the money you're loaning them. Still with me? Because that's just the tip of this fucking iceberg. No one makes money by sitting on bonds -- you make money by buying and selling those IOU slips to other people. There is no fixed price, bonds are sold "OTC" (over the counter") for as much as a buyer is willing to pay. And that's where shit gets really crazy, because everyone's got a fucking excel with thousands of fucking variables all trying to figure out how much a bond is really worth compared to what it's being sold for. Bonds are a motherfucking opaque mess of a market run by geeks and nerds -- but the guys on top are rolling in it.

I'm an upper class white male, shouldn't I continue to be richer and richer without doing anything?

Currencies
It costs 12.5 cents to produce a hundred dollar bill. The remaining value, $99.875, is quite literally built on pure faith. Ever since we left the gold standard (no, we're not having that fucking conversation right now), the value of a currency is (in theory) purely a reflection of the faith in its purchasing power. Except for the Chinese. Fuck the Chinese. "Oh yeah we've got a legit currency, we're just going to arbitrarily say how much it's fucking worth in accordance with our interests and you all have to just play along because FUCK YOU." Anyhow, for most investors currencies are just another hassle to deal with: say you made 1,000 euros on the Italian stock market, but then euro drops against the dollar -- suddenly that $1,350 you made is only worth $1,150. You can make money off of pure currency trades though, and some people just live off of the forex numbers and currency arbitrage.

Commodities
Copper, Steel, Silver and Gold; upon these bricks are stories told. Until recently, everyone was making their money in hard commodities -- China was building and buying everything faster than it could be mined out of the earth. Not doing too hot lately. Hard commodities are mined; soft commodities, like coffee, fruit and corn, are grown. Every commodity has its own culture, and the (somewhat) predictable nature of commodity productions means that a huge part of the industry is build on derivatives. Commodity traders come in all shapes and sizes, from casual gold bugs to field analysts who visit coal mines in third-world countries and bribe foremen to suss out how much bullshit the mafia-manipulated balance sheets are reporting.

Derivatives & Structured Products
No. No no no no no. I am not going to try to fucking explain derivatives in one fucking paragraph. Derivatives can be summarized by the profound words of one J. Wellington Wimpy: "I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The technical explanation is that a derivative is a contract whose value is derived from an underlying entity. Yeah I know that doesn't make any fucking sense. These are the fuckers that brought down the markets last time around because greedy assholes kept splicing and splicing and splicing until no one knew what the fuck was going on. Which is not to say it's an irresponsible class, in fact it's an essential component to much of modern finance, it just has a high potential for abuse. You know, moreso than normal, which is already pretty fucking high. Look, Investopedia has a video on what a futures contract is, go watch it.

Funds (Long-Only)
OK, here's where things start getting a little meta, if you'll pardon the term. A fund is a collective investment where a bunch of people give money to one dude who is supposed to be very good in one specific region/asset class and invests it with predefined goal in mind. Funds will also typically have an investment style of some kind. Example: you raise $500,000 to start a European Equities Growth fund. That means you will take the money and invest it in a portfolio of European companies that you believe have a high potential for growth. You will need to explain to investors why you select the companies you do, how you build conviction around them, and what themes are driving your investment decisions. Funds typically operate along a risk/return metric of some kind that must be made clear to investors. Investing in US blue-chip companies might not net you a ton of cash, but you probably won't go bust either. Investing in Chinese start-ups might make you a multi-billionaire, or you might never see your money again. Fund managers typically take a commission fee and as well as a percentage of the money they make. These percentages get higher the more famous the fund manager is and the more advanced the strategy he is running -- you can't really justify dropping someone's money in a passive tracker that follows the S&P and demand 4% off the top.

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yo dude I love me some economics as much as the next guy but holy shit those are some gay-ass walls of text right there

>>33886263

Now funds can invest in anything, including -- get this -- other funds. So you can make a fund of funds, investing in different funds across the world depending on your own worldview. You can imagine how incestuous this can get on the upper echelons. Long-only funds are limited in the sense that they can only take a long position -- that is to say, you believe in something and you invest in it. In that sense you make money in tandem with the markets -- if you run that Europe fund, and the EU markets do horribly, you're probably not going to make any money regardless of how good a stock picker you are. That's why long-only funds are typically tied to a benchmark with the same theme as their fund -- so if your European fund made 1% year-to-date but your benchmark, the MSCI Europe ex-UK index is at -1.68% then you've got a relative return of 2.68%.

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>>33886267

I'm enjoying them and I like the style.

>>33886279

Funds (Hedge)
Ooooh boy. Hedge funds are the Kim Kardashians of Finance -- everyone's heard of them, and we all hate them even if we don't really know what they are. Also, lots of drugs. Hedge funds are meant to use a combination of strategies to deliver an absolute return, meaning they are meant to make money regardless of market movements. This is theoretically very possible -- in addition to long positions, hedge funds can also take out shorts -- that is to say, a bet that a particular asset will in fact do badly. Shorts selling in a nutshell: I borrow 50 shares of Microsoft from you (which you lend to me with interest), saying that I'll return them next week. I then immediately turn around and sell those 50 shares. A couple days later, Microsoft announces that the entire board of directors died in a freak caviar accident. Microsoft stock value plummets. Next week rolls around, and I buy 50 now-dirt-cheap Microsoft shares and return them to you, pocketing the difference. Of course, that's if everything goes right. I still owe you those 50 shares even if the stock price goes up; I'd have to buy up the more expensive stock and give them back to you plus interest. For every hedge-fund billionaire you hear of in the news, I can guarantee you a dozen who lost everything.

>>33886298

Alternatives
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. The above are the main asset classes, but really at the end of the day anything can be bought, sold, speculated, contracted, split up, inflated, etc. Money is the measurement of value, and what a man values is the most subjective concept on God's green earth. What you've learned is how people react to money; but you're certainly not bound by the same paths that others tread.
Multi-Asset Investing
Jack of all trades. Multi-Asset investing means not only having an understanding of each and every asset class in your portfolio, but also how these assets interact with each other. The world is smaller than it's ever been, and news in one sector can ratchet across the markets in ways no one can predict. Multi-asst investment is all about seeing the bigger picture; understanding how the US yield curve can affect Russian gas prices or how an Australian copper mine's annual report could spell the end of several European hedge funds.

ASSETS (PERSONAL)
250,000 USD -- Checking account @ 0.5%

DEBT (PERSONAL)
50,000 USD -- Student Loan @ 4.6% APR

HOUSING
Parent's House - Free

PERKS
n/a

CONTACTS
Career Councilor - Guaranteed to have a few leads for a job

Aberdeen Recruiter - Gave you his card at a graduate fair

Family Friend - Used to work in private equity, you think?

File: tease.gif (1.89 MB, 275x284)

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>>33886141
What is this? Bonds, equities and shit?

No, we have a plan. Become a trader, preferably at Goldman-Sachs, but any large bank is good. Then ingratiate yourself to the personnel in the bank. What you do is get insider info from other branches in exchange for favours. You also learn how the risk management and bonus models work.

Then you find the loopholes that allow you to take huge risks. If they pay off the bonuses will be huge, and they will almost certainly pay off for a short period of time.

Use the above market returns, or illusion thereof, to get more money and more leverage.

Eventually it'll blow up, but you will have gotten bonuses and you have been responsible for a lot of money, so you can get a new job.

Just remember to spend time and money to keep powerful bankers, politicians and prosecutors happy. After all, you or your bank might need a bailout from the government, and you might need recommendations from top bankers. You also don't want get hit too hard if you are caught using better-than-legal tactics.

>>33886298

let's not forget that when anyone defaults in financial system, their creditors have to write off their assets. This is particularly an issue if a very leveraged hedge fund fucks up and ends up in a large loss...

>>33886267

>sorry, I'm quite bad at layout and I can't do pdfs, but I figure you'd rather understand how it actually works than me trying to do some baby's-first-finance thing, even if it takes a 2,000 word introduction. Apologies if I'm wrong!

>>33886288
>Thanks!

>>33886330

>Note: This is a perfectly valid path to take. Keep in mind though that you will not be the only one with this idea, and birds of a feather tend to slit each other's fucking throats in the middle of the night for that sweet sweet Christmas bonus

>>33886324

Let's start with hearing what the family friend has to say.

Aside from that, do we, the MC, have any field apart from finance itself that we're particularly interested in, or is that left up to the players?

>>33886397

Up to you. I'm giving you a blank slate with a college-level understanding of finance and a middle-ish class white American background. Your ancestors are Italian, but that's waaaay back.

Please select two asset classes you would like to be more familiar in; this will help shape the narrative.

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>>33886443

>Italian heritage

>Asset: Equity
>Asset: Commodity: Agriculture (Olives, Olive oil, Durum wheat etc.)

>>33886360
Ideas rarely need to be original to be good. Execution is nine tenths of success.

>>33886534
Sounds good

Start an online escort service. Pimpin' get good money.

>>33886534
>>33886575

>Thank you for your input; generating response...

>>33886586
>Pimping
>Hard n' Soft Asset Management

You gotta get yo' equity outa dat trippy-ass futures market, Treyshawn.

I told you about them hedge funds, dawd. I warned you bro.

>>33886604

You fucking loved the Godfather. Not for the movie, really, although it was quite special, but because of the scene. You know that one scene, when the kid's getting initiated into the family and spends his time in the family village? Man, that was beautiful. You don't know much about when your family got off the boat -- you, your dad, and your grand-dad (god rest his soul) all have naturalised accents. You're vaguely aware that your grandfather's parents were off the boat, or maybe it was the ones before.

Regardless, even though you're as American as opinionated fallacies, you always had a romantic understanding of your home country. The weather; the women; the food. The markets.
Italian equities are weird. The European periphery has been on shaky ground since Greece et al. collapsed, and it wasn't too long ago that people feared the collapse of the Euro. Now, everyone's bullish again. Italy and Spain have been some of the best performing markets year to date; how weird is that? Thing is, the real economy is still shit -- unemployment's sky-high, and while yields are dropping no one's really starting businesses. We're not really sure why, and that uncertainty is felt throughout the investment community. Italian investors are a bit shaky, a bit flighty. Happy, mind you, they made a ton of cash; but they're kind of worried it's going to be yanked out from them.

They might not entirely be wrong.

>>33886803

You have a specialized knowledge in Italy's breadbasket. Despite government efforts, the agricultural sector has shown little growth in recent decades. The imports of agricultural products increased from $19.6 billion in 1987 to $20.9 billion in 2001. Italy has to import about half of its meat. The land is well suited for raising fruits and vegetables, both early and late crops, and these are the principal agricultural exports. Although yields per hectare in sugar beets, tomatoes, and other vegetable crops have increased significantly, both plantings and production of wheat declined between 1974 and 1981. Thus, although Italy remains a major cereal-producing country, wheat must be imported. The government controls the supply of domestic wheat and the import of foreign wheat.
Production of major agricultural products in 1999 (in thousands of tons) included sugar beets, 14,100; wheat, 7,743; corn, 9,996; tomatoes, 7,091; oranges, 1,994; potatoes, 2,077; apples, 2,416; barley, 1,329; and rice, 1,362. In 1999, Italy produced 9,732,000 tons of wine grapes, 3,208,000 tons of olives, and 649,000 tons of olive oil. In 1998, Italy had 1,475,000 tractors (third in the world) and 50,450 harvester threshers.
Your uncle's friend runs a small private equity firm specializing in buying up along the olive oil supply chain. You remember him as friendly, if guarded. You can also at any time pull up the markets, do some research and make an investment (subject to brokerage fees).

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>>33886818
Kill the uncle. Kidnap the friend.

Absorb the firm into a tax-free charity and write off derivatives as donations.

>>33886818

Graph: Price of extra virgin olive oil by metric ton, monthly. Currently selling for $3,760 per ton.

File: olive oil prices.png (69 KB, 1352x504)

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>>33886876

(would help if I included the graph)

>>33886818

Let's meet the uncle and talk with him about the (not only) poetic value of Olive Oil and about the process by which it comes from the volcanic Italian soil to the restaurants and pizzerias of New York.

Also I wonder if we'll be able to find some investment set to outstrip the student loan interest and whether we shouldn't pay that back.

File: ftsemib.png (53 KB, 1365x527)

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>>33886876

Graph of the Italian stock exchange (FTSE MIB)

Research the Italian furniture industry.
I know a lot of their factories import lots of wood from our guys while cheating on the taxes, turn it into shitty furniture and then sell that overpriced garbage all over the world.

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>>33886945
I'm not seeing how our human trafficking ring fits into this, but I'm willing to see it through.

>>33886759

Funny story, there are actually black traders who speak in ebonics. I've met a couple. It's the funniest thing in the world, because they switch to serious white person voice when having conversations with investors but with friends it's always "naw dog, you dun fucked up with that Apple trade"

>>33886951

Looks like I (>>33886945) am the only player here at the moment. You might want to adjourn the quest for another time OP.

Cool idea, but pretty challenging, unless you want to hold players by the hand.

>>33887047
I have no knowledge whatsoever about investing.

I like educational quests.

>>33887010

This is true; many of the European "Made in [x]" sings are quite useless, as legally they can put slap it on anywhere so long as its assembled in that country. So you source out the raw materials for cheap, do ikea assemble in italy, then ship it out as premium goods. They do the same with tomatoes etc.

Quests where you play the bad guy are fine, but the protagonist has to be relatable and sympathetic on SOME level.

>>33887047

>No worries, this is meant to be more of a slow-moving quest anyways. Lots of research to gather and the like. Like the real markets, there's a lot of "place money, go do something else, come back later and see what happens". It's not meant to be beat-you-over-the-head educational, but yeah it is real world stuff that I'm hoping is interesting enough to warrant the effort, especially considering everyone should have a basic idea as to what the fuck is happening to their money now a days

>>33887114
You are a college student with more debt than ball hair and a decent understanding of Italian agriculture.

You are trying to become an entrepreneur in order to not pay off your student loan until you die of old age and maybe make some money while you try.

That's pretty sympathetic.

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>>33887122

You are doing God's work, OP.

>>33887066
It's general practice in all developed countries.
One of our business partners makes shoe tops, and ships them off to Germany for assembly. Except that's high quality work equipment made of all kinds of expensive materials, unlike Italian garbage which generally gets by because idiots think it looks pretty.

Anyway, from what I know, Italy does well with textiles/shoes (mostly fashion), furniture (again, esthetic value), and some low-tier industrial machinery (which is shit, we buy ours from Japan and Germany).

So, I'd suggest looking into those markets.

>>33887172
Here's the plan. Almost all american olive oil is cut with generic seed oil. (true fact, check it out)

We make friends with journalists, hire a few fact checkers, and invest in the few companies that are not scams and short the ones that are.

Then we hand the research to our good journalist friends who are lucky to get a free expose and to do you favour.

We also emphisize the reseachers who consider omega 6 fatty acid excess damaging, like Berardi. People are really emotional about food and this should fuck up those companies who are scamming.

>>33887122
I applaud you for the effort you're putting in this Quest, BigBenBernanke

>>33887305
Add this: do this with some company who would hire you. Makes a great first impression and that's important. You'll make sweet bonuses.

>>33887185
The Italian economy is really bad, from what I get, but the Italian brands still have a lot of value (even if they're now nearly-in-name-only Italian).

How about we invest in some local production of wine and sell the products to the American?

>>33887305
It's cut for a reason, though. Extra virgin oil is fucking expensive to produce.

Wikipedia says that outside Greece and Italy most countries produce only about 10% extra virgin as part of their olive crops, if they produce olives at all.

The American extra virgin refers to acid content, not necessarily regional authenticity.

>>33887185
>>33887305

>Pulling together an analysis of Italian furniture, textile, machinery and olive oil explort&bottling industries. Please wait...

>>33887388
Wait, I have a better idea:

We hire an Italian wine-maker to teach their technic to Americans wine-makers, they ship the american wine to italy, bottle it up here, then have him come back to America (where the market is bigger) with the "made in Europa" appelation,

>>33887410
No olive oil is cut with seed oils. Meaning rapeseed/corn or something else. Olive oil is a fruit oil. It's a straight up scam.

>>33887448
That's what I said. The American version of "extra virgin" refers explicitly to acid content.

It's underhanded and debatably false advertising, but hey. Them's the breaks.

>>33887438
Better yet, we can try to sell it to China. Apparently, the wine demand is very high there

>>33887448
>rapeseed
Damn, it's only a matter of time until SJWs shut down oil production for good if the manufacturers keep this up.

>>33887488
IT'S LATIN FOR TURNIP, OK

File: italianfurniture.pdf (6.64 MB, PDF)

6.64 MB PDF

>>33887419

Please see attached for a report on the Italian wooden furniture industry.

>>33887466
The plan still works. People think olive oil is healthy. It's not, because it's a scam. Look it only needs to drop those stock prices by 5-10%.

>>33887541

Please see attached for the EU projections of Spanish, Italian and Greek olive oil productions for 2012 - 2020

>>33887481
>>33887438
>>33887388

Okay, tell me what you think of it:

We look for an American wine-making company that wish to expand and an Italian one that is nearly bankrupt (it's not that hard to find so, Italy's economy is fucked). We propose our plan to the American one: Contact the Italian one, buy it and have them send their wine-making expert to teach the American employee the traditional method. At the same time, keep only the minimum of the Italian company. Once the American wine is made, send it to Italy with the rest of the bottles' components, have them be assembled there and be declared "Made In Europa -traditional method-". Then, sell it to whoever want to buy it.

File: europeanoliveoil.pdf (260 KB, PDF)

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>>33887640

*ahem*

>>33887541
Herrr, didn't the situation change dramatically since 2000? Italy was hit hard by the Economic Crisis

File: italianoilhistory.pdf (3.63 MB, PDF)

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>>33887659

Please see attached for an introduction to the Italian olive oil industry.

>>33887541

>black economy
>10-20 percent
Good God. And to think it's probably an optimistic, undervalued estimate...

>>33887740
>black economy

What is a black economy?

I presume it involves cheap imitations of precious medals, stupidly-large tire rims, and loud music.

>>33887690

The article is an excerpt from "International Wooden Furniture Markets: A review," co-published by the International Trade Center and the International Tropical Timber Organization in 2005.

>>33887541
That brazillian cluster cooperation part seems interesting.
Check on the project for investment opportunities.

Also, search for small companies in the Lombardia region dealing with dark woods and modern design principles since that's apparently on the rise.

>OP posts 3 more PDFs
goddamnit

>>33887772

Presumably the undocumented, untaxed, extralegal mafia one.

>>33887772

Investopedia:

Definition of 'Black Economy'

The segment of a country's economic activity that is derived from sources that fall outside of the country's rules and regulations regarding commerce. The activities can be either legal or illegal depending on what goods and/or services are involved.

Investopedia explains 'Black Economy'

For instance, a construction worker who is paid under the table will neither have taxes withheld, nor will the employer pay taxes on the his earnings. The construction work is legal; it is the nonpayment of taxes that classifies the event as part of the black economy. The illegal-weapons trade is an example of black-economy activity that is illegal.

Black markets are those goods and services that form the black (or underground) economy. Typically, black markets arise when a government restricts economic activity for particular goods and services, either by making the transaction illegal or by taxing the item so much that it becomes cost-prohibitive. A black market may arise to make illegal goods and services available or to make expensive items available for less money (such as pirated software).

>>33887659
>>33887709
>olive oil production is stagnant.

Well, fuck. Check on Croatia which is right next door and I know that there was a rush to raise olive plantations before EU integration.

>>33887780
Yes, but the Crisis happened in 2008.

>Off for a couple hours; please deliberate as to what course of action you would like to take. This can include a larger strategy ("Disrupt the American olive oil market with cheaper, more organic Italian goods") or a tactical next step ("Introduce self to uncle's friend with a goal to learn more about the oil business and/or possibly land a job"). Actions and consequences will be determined by a combination of dice and real life precedent.

We could take my idea here >>33887647 but with olive oil instead of wine

>>33887952
I stand by my plan.


>>33887305
>>33887341
>>33887630

>>33887993
we could combine your idea with mine>>33887647

>>33887647
I don't see the value added here. How is the US going to produce vine cheaper after the transportation costs. Also, wine market is pretty regulated, so that might not even be possible. Besides no one buys wine that says made in Europe. The location where the wine is made is more specific, like Mendoza.

>>33888026
How?

>>33888080
I meant "made in this place in Italy", but you're probably right.

That plan is wortheless, unless there is something that make the average joe warry of american products

>>33888093
We make people doubt American olive oil, and we offer them a product "made in Italy". Just use premium olive oil (and not the scam Amrecans sell) instead of wine for my idea.

The reason why I'm not exactly fond of agriculture is the long cycle time. If you're dealing with olives, they get harvested once a year and that's it. It limits your cycle time to a year and no less, which is why industry is almost always superior to agriculture.

There's also the service industry, but that's fucking gay, often seasonal and did I mention gay?

But eh, we're already skilled in agriculture, so we might as well roll with it.

Wine is also a bad idea because it's alcohol and that shit is regulated to hell and back. We don't want to poke that nest of red tape.
Unless you want to get into smuggling and stuff bit that lands you in prison for not really all that much gain.

In short, I'm basically throwing my support behind the earlier mentioned plans - talk to our uncle, get him to recommend some straight and narrow organic producers, invest in them and then get some journalists to investigate oil scams and raise a panic over the whole thing while giving companies you invested into a public pat on the back.

If we don't manage to attract enough attention with this publicity stunt, we still shouldn't be fucked because we should make a smaller return on our investment either way.

>>33888214
We should try to do this with an institution. The bonuses man.

Invest in cpo trading from indonesia, do it by joining a consortium

A good plantation require 5 million usd investment, if we can source the 30% collateral, the net profit from cpo is 200.000 usd per day, 30 ton per hour production cycle

>>33888214
what do you think about >>33888167

>>33888275
You mean, moving oil from the US to Italy to have it repackaged?

The journalist investigation plan hinges on using a media scandal to increase scrutiny on oil, which would in term give companies that are doing a clean job an advantage.

What you're suggesting (repackaging well made, but still American oil and branding it Italian) requires less scrutiny, not more. It also requires cooperation with a traditional Italian manufacturer willing to sell out their secret and an American company willing to risk a chunk of their own capital on this.

Seems to me like there are too many points where this can go wrong.

>>33887952
Good job on the quest so far BigBen.

>>33888371
There is already one, and only one AFAIK, company in the US that does clean oil. Invest in that.

>>33888371
Fair point.

I have another idea: We contact our Career Councilor, and ask him if he know some biology/ health/dietetic/ other sciences related to toxic stuff in food students in need for a job/credits, and we propose to them to make a study on the oil scam.

That way, we'll get scientific evidences to show to the journalists.

>>33888214
You raise some pretty good points. We need a way in for the publicity stunt to work though, credible journalists who reach a significant amount of people, will know we want to use them for our own ends, not to mention they probably won't be interested in a smuck like us. Sensational journalism is the other way to go, but that might cause some serious reputation damage, not to mention there's no telling if public outrage is enough to offset the fact that the claims may not be waterproof.
Hiring private fact checkers makes it even more explicit we're doing this for our own ends, and the companies we're trying to bankrupt will use that against us, not to mention they're expensive.
Best way would be to have a few journalist contacts left from college, or to approach them as part of a credible institution, like maybe some consumer interest organisation.

>>33888768
I say we contact scientists or science students and propose them to do a study on the oil scam. Then we find who is the olive oil company's owner who is the most in view (popular, unpopular, whatever), and propose infos to journalists on "the poison X is selling", show them the study, and let the news do their work

>>33888768
>consumer interest organisation
This seems like the way to go, but the scale of it is messy.
We're working from the US right now (I think?), so we would be the most familiar with American consumer rights groups. Now, that's fine if we want to go after importers and US firms, but I don't know how thorough a local group is.

If they fuck up, we won't secure our guys in Italy an advantage, we'll just cause distrust towards olive oil in general and that might drop the prices.

What we want is more of an international effort that will both shit on our (already dishonest) competition and put the guys we invested in on a pedestal.

Ultimately, our problem is scale - that's a lot of work for one guy to instigate.

>>33889068
Maybe we should create a team? A group of guys that reveal typical scams in the business world

Heck, we could have a website, fans and an show.

>>33889123
There's a reason why this doesn't already exist and it's called money.
First of all, we're doing this out of self interest which everyone who hates us will point out every chance they get.
Second, putting your name in public like that is a great way to attract the attention of people who will pay a local nigger to mess you up.
It also seems like a lot of work.

>>33889068
That is why we need to get into an investment bank. Doing this with 50 million makes money, doing it with 250k is fucking pointless. Lets sell this and ourselves to some institution with resources. Don't we have contacts for that? It'll prove us as an investment banker

>>33889123

Well, we could even ditch idea of investing into the business itself and instead set up a group investigating and inspecting available foodstuffs and their production methods, set up a watchdog of sorts. But that seems more of a task for an NGO than something to make big money on.

Not to mention our starting capital is fairly limited. Doubt it's anywhere near enough to penetrate the market with a new domestic (done by legit italian methods) or imported (100% legit italian) brand if we decided to go this way, even if we pulled off a scare on established brands.

>>33889230
That does sound like a good idea.
Not sure if they will like it, though, because of how honest it is. They live off of scams, a plan that involves pulling scams into the light might not sit well with them.

>>33889317
Fuck that. Money talks, bullshit walks.

Besides, even investment bankers eat, and it's not solely brown babies and blood of the poor. Even they would rather do something good and honest if the profit is the same.

>>33889384
yo, OP, you ever coming back?

>>33889444

Well he said 'couple of hours', so I imagine it's anywhere between now and four hours from now.

>>33889068
Well, I'm assuming the legislative holes that allow people to sell extra virgin olive oil with 90% regular seed oil exist mainly in the US. it seems like this is the market we should be aiming at, because with how strict Europe is on its food regulations, that shit probably doesn't fly there.
And if we release a study backed by a consumer rights group, it'll also find its way to other markets.
Them fucking up is a real possibility, but it always is.
We might also want to take a look at promoting real olive oil through other channels, cooking shows, recipe books, lifestyle magazines?
But the scale we're working on -- yeah, that's pretty damn limited, and this assumes we're going all in on this project, putting an awful lot of our eggs in the same basket.

>>33886324
Also ask the Career Councilor for any leads he has on consumer rights organisations or a government agency that's responsible for labeling or such. A long shot, but it might work.

>>33889988
Maybe a consumer rights organisation could need a economy guy?

I love that this is a quest that exists.

It makes me happy in my blackest of hearts (the third one, to be more specific).

>>33889988
>>33890205
These ideas suck. Ain't no money in it.

I did not make this idea to be a fucking crusader, I made it to make money and think outside the box. Everyone is running CAPM already, and any retard can learn it. TO get rich you need to stand out.

>>33890442
That's your gallbladder, anon.

Holy shit what are you guys doing. Go to god damn work and make money instead of this. Go play EVE Online

>>33890640
I logged in 10 hours ago, anon. There was a break for server restart, but I've been performing low-effort jewing all day.

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>>33890640
>What are you guys doing

Having fun

>>33890688
How long does it take to play for free?

I'm told that requires maximum over-jew.

>>33890756
If you need to ask, you probably can't do it.
Some newfags got enough by running data/relic sites in nullsec but that shit is unintuitive as fuck and gets you blown up a lot.

>>33890534
dude, you don't get rich by doing schemes at the point we're at.

We should probably find a job somewhere, go up the ladder and then start scheming.

>>33890534

We could get chumps in the Italian American community to invest in land speculation.

We do the whole olive oil expose thing and then pitch investing in an olive plantation in Sabina or some other place in Italy that is PDO protected by European law. The use of the name (like Black Forest Ham) might not be protected outside of the EU, but European PDO stamps/classifications can't just be faked like the scams we've been discussing. Basically we create a craze and use that craze to pitch a risky venture capital thing to yuppies in our family/city's Italian-American social circles. It's not going to make us rich, but it will get us additional funds and a reputation/career started as VC managers, rather than wasting our lives working for a consumer rights NGO just so we can spend our meager money on exploiting the market shifts we create in investments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_products_with_protected_designation_of_origin

>>33891024
Basically, once we create the authenticity to craze we should be early investors pre-demand-increase in the authentic shit, rather than in the fake shit.

>>33891024
Fuck yeah! We invest the money for them, collect the fees and if it works out (lol), we can keep making it bigger and get ever bigger fees until it blows up other people's pensions. No risk, if we can sell it.

Good idea

>>33891058
And we also get our names on the shit lists of every single company with a drop of canola oil in their olive oil.

It may come back to bite us. Probably not.

>>33891058
Yes, that was the plan all along.
I don't know why some people took it off course into working for consumer rights groups - those are just the tool we might be able to use to get this oil scam out into the media.

Italy is also a highly desirable "second passport" residency/dual-citizenship location, and pitching that aspect to romantic Italian-Americans as a benefit of investing in mother Italy could help sell it.

>>33890999
>>33891148
nah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UTSqg4sqlU

We can't start scheming until we get some money. It's easy enough to get a few million dollars from people to start something, but you need pretty firm connections. Even if you're somebody's kid, if you don't have ANY experience no one is going to take you seriously. We have a good start, but we have to put some time in before we start violating SEC regulations.

Also since we seem to be into Italian agricultural products, which is crazy to begin with, why don't we just go all the way and get into weather derivatives? Maybe throw in a little reinsurance or some life settlements.

>>33891389

We could always be the junior partner to our uncle's friend for the first scam, essentially buying his reputation to help get us established. He'd take the majority of the handler's fee from the investors, but it would get our career started.

>>33891483
>scam
This >>33891126 is not a "scam". It is an investment opportunity and you'd better get your story straight.

>>33891345
This guy is high as fuck all right for talking to himself about how much drugs he does.

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Capitalism Ho

>>33887305
>>33887341
>>33887630
>>33888371
>>33888768
>>33889058
>>33889068

>STRATEGY
Investment Hypothesis
You believe the open secret that American olive oil is cut with generic seed oil provides the opportunity for market disruption (note that, while possible, conclusive proof of this fact has not been researched {ie posted in this thread}). Considering the marketing image of olive oil as a healthy product, you believe that bringing this fact to light through media propagation could create a bias against domestic products and for foreign alternatives which you believe do not cut their product. Having taken a so-far undefined position in Italian olive oil, you will then seek to profit off of the resulting increase in demand.

>Strategic Decisions
How will you prove this fact and disseminate it into public consciousness?

How will you seek to profit from this hypothesis? There are many possible investment angles; options include (off the top of my head) buying shares in Italian olive oil companies, shorting American companies, purchasing Italian olive oil contracts or purchasing actual barrels of Italian olive oil.
>Investor tip: When creating an investment hypothesis, be sure to consider other ways you can profit off of the same hypothesis. Large market disruptions carry ripple effects: China's 2013 boom in e-commerce was lucrative not only for the internet companies that sold goods, but also the logistics companies that saw a huge increase in the volume of deliveries they were making from warehouses to individual doorsteps. The Economist has an interesting article on the subject in last week's edition.

>>33896253

>INSIGHT: Activist Investors

Taking a position on a particular investment and then making that position known in an effort to influence market opinion is a very common tactic in finance. Certain names carry such influence that they become what are called "market movers" and can really sort of create their own weather. Consider this: Warren Buffet is the world's most famous (and lucrative) investor. Every year he offers a one-on-one lunch to the highest bidder (the proceeds go to charity). This year, the winner was a Singaporean businessman; the winning bid was $2.2 million. Point is, people listen to him. So if he invests in something, many people will simply blindly follow him, which will of course drive up the value of the investment in question. Warren Buffett has made so much money that it is almost impossible for him to actually lose money even if he tried.

Certain hedge funds will short a company then go to press about all the bad things the company does. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman has famously taken out a multi-million dollar short on Herbalife, which he calls a "2.4 billion dollar scam". He has so far spent over $50 million in a huge effort to expose Herbalife as a massive ponzi scheme (which is an indicator of how much he will make if he is proven right). Carl Icahn, another billionaire investor, has taken an equally strong position in the opposite direction -- he believes Herbalife to be legit. Needless to say, the two men hate each other.

>>33896588

Tactical Decision:
Approach uncle's friend in an effort to better understand his private equity firm and possibly cut him in on the deal. You do not know the man well having only met him several times in large social gatherings. You do not remember much of him apart from a stern demeanor.

-or-

Fly solo.

>>33896846
>Approach uncle's friend.

>>33896846
>>Approach uncle's friend.

seems like a good option.

>>33896846
>Tactical Decision:
>Approach uncle's friend in an effort to better understand his private equity firm and possibly cut him in on the deal. You do not know the man well having only met him several times in large social gatherings. You do not remember much of him apart from a stern demeanor.
could be good to get our feet wet into a job. and get more resources