FUTURES ARE LIKE DEODORANT.

1. Futures, like deodorant, are unnecessary. In fact, futures and deodorant as widely available products are roughly the same age! I'm thinking mid-20th century. Human beings existed for thousands upon thousands of years without the benefit of either futures or deodorant, and everything kept moving along just fine. This proves that both are fundamentally unnecessary.

2. Futures, like deodorant, can augment our lives IF USED PROPERLY. Take it from me, as both a commodity broker AND as a person with stinky, sweaty armpits, both products can help - but only if used properly. Deodorant only works if applied to clean skin at a minimum of once per day. If you follow those guidelines, you'll generally be okay on the body odor front. If you go "off label" and use deodorant improperly, such as only bathing and applying once per week, it isn't going to do you any good. It's the same with futures. You have to understand them, use them properly, and very importantly, STAY ON TOP OF YOUR POSITION. You can't apply deodorant once every quarter and blow it off the rest of the time. The same goes for futures. You CAN NOT put positions on and them blow them off for months on end. In fact, the maintenance period on a futures position is exactly the same as the maintenance period on deodorant: DAILY. This is why I yell at clients who don't read and understand their equity run EVERY DAY. To not read your equity run every day is to have "bad business hygiene".

3. Futures, like deodorant, if used improperly can do terrible harm. Using futures improperly is like EATING your deodorant. It can kill you. Don't do that. I don't care if everyone else is chowing down on their Speed Stick. Don't you do it.

4. You can not use deodorant to treat cancer. You can not use futures to "bail out" a lack of cash marketing competence (cancer). If you believe that there is a commodity broker out there that can, by virtue of his incredible powers to foresee future events, turn your business around and put you on the path to consistent profitability, you are like a man who upon being diagnosed with cancer begins eating his deodorant believing that it will cure his cancer. Not only will eating your deodorant NOT cure your cancer, because it is not meant to be eaten, it will probably kill you faster.  And to finish the metaphor, the magical, forecasting commodity broker would be the quack witch doctor. 

The contemporary mainstream cattle industry has cancer (no marketing skill). The mainstream pundits are telling the people that the way to cure their cancer is to eat deodorant (use futures to "hedge" improperly). I'm over here in "looney land" telling people that they should use radiation and chemotherapy to treat their cancer and save their life first and foremost, and use deodorant to control body odor, thus potentially and mildly augmenting their life.

I know, I know. That's CRAZY talk. I know. But, I'll keep saying it. You know why? Because I'm right. I know you're never, ever supposed to say that in this politically correct day and age. Any display of confidence in facts is a sin. There's no such thing as objective truth. There's no such thing as certainty. Everything's debateable. Everything's just "a matter of opinion". There is no black or white - only insipid shades of gray - even in the realm of mathematics! Well, I think that's all a monstrous, putrid, festering pile of crap. And there isn't enough deodorant in the world to mask the stench from a pile of crap.

Forecasters are killing the North American Cattle Industry.
"Global warming" is a complete fraud designed to advance the cause of socialism and enslave humanity.
Abortion is the murder of an innocent human being and is never justified under any circumstance whatsoever.
Every human being is a question, to which the ONLY answer is Jesus Christ.