History of the Real Economic Society

20 Years in the Making

I’m James West.

I’ve been writing The Real Economist since 2006. I am not an accredited economist, though I have been reading economics and political philosophy since I was a youngster.

I spent the first half of my life making money in the stock market by finding worthwhile bets and then writing about them and then making video content about them. I did okay. I was interrupted in this pursuit as a result of persistent exploration of the metaphysical universe with the aid of psychotropic plant extracts. The utter futility and self-destructive nature of our superficial, wealth and consumer-driven world became apparent.

The primary skill set in successfully picking stocks that go up used to be pattern recognition. That simple skill is now largely useless as the patterns are now subject to the manipulation of quantitative analytic-driven algorithmic trading.

In fact, the entire financial system is configured as a user-friendly appearing money-making carnival while actually operating as a wealth transfer mechanism guaranteed to make retail investors fail. Like the old adage of the casino business goes, “the house always wins”.  For many reasons. Not least of which is the under-the-table trickery that constitutes manipulation. And then there is the algorithmic front-running of trades by platforms with premium proximity to the main internet pipes and extreme processing power budgets.

While firmly strapped to the metaphysical hamster wheel of perpetual pursuit of wealth by expending physical, mental and financial wealth in the financial system in pursuit of wealth, I suddenly had an epiphany: there was no purpose to this pursuit apart from wealth for wealth’s sake.

There was no service to humanity.

And that’s when I realized that the entire financial and economic language was an elaborate fraud evolved by the world’s multi-generational financial elite, who had figured out how to psychologically induce this rat-like pattern of panicked pursuit of wealth and consumerism in the general population for their exclusive exploitation.

But pattern recognition is the only skill set required to practice Real Economics. That along with some critical thinking and statistical analysis and you’re good to go. Oh and perhaps a little linguistic and epistemological self-enlightenment, and some biology and principles of thermodynamics. 

This all happened around the time of 9/11 – an event that catalyzed a personal internal crisis of identity and vision that was the seed of the Real Economist.

With the pursuit of financial gain with no limit thenceforth categorized properly as a treadmill I was voluntarily on in service to the Invisible Hand or Super Organism or more accurately, the Multi-generational Trans-national financial elite, I became obsessed with the idea of “What SHOULD I be doing with this precious life?”

And thats when it dawned on my, who once proudly embodied a relentless indifference to humanity and the suffering of others (a prerequisite to succeed in the world of billionaires, ersatz philanthropic posturing notwithstanding), that I actually valued the human potential higher than every material thing in life.

And so, I changed my personal programming to pursue that instead. The Real Economist is the result.