Ancient Abilities Part 2Chapter 3: Mission Finances free porn video

The Guidance Council and Cathy had stepped in to restructure my personal life and organize my financial affairs.

With Cathy’s involvement, I went from a pathetic lonely widower to a happily married man with three wives. To be more accurate, I consider my three women to be my wives, but we are not actually married in the legal sense. I suppose you could say we live together and call each other husband and wife.

I’ve heard of whirlwind courtships, but mine has to have set a record. One day, I took Sam to dinner to help her understand what the Guidance Council was doing to her. The next morning Sam moved in with me, and the day after that Mary joined us. One day I was single with no girlfriend or interest in acquiring one, and two days later, I had two wives. To this day, I do not fully understand how in two days, I went from no women in my life to having two beautiful, intelligent wives. The only thing I am sure about those events was Cathy had a lot to do with them.

Sixteen months later, Sam and Mary added Karen to our relationship; it was a one-day courtship also. Karen did not believe in birth control and the sexual attraction between us was intense, so it isn’t surprising that we learned she was pregnant two months later.

When we learned Karen was pregnant, Sam and Mary were in their final trimester. Sam, Mary, and Karen swore that if they had it to do over again, they would arrange it so only one of them was pregnant at any given time, I silently agreed with them whole-heartedly. Thank God, I was smart enough to bite my tongue and not verbalize my thoughts. The three of them decided to space our future kids out at nominal 8-month intervals. Once again, I suspected Cathy of having something to do with their wanting to get pregnant so frequently. I found it very understandable that on occasion, they were grumpy, upset, or irritated because of their pregnancy, but I was happy that they did not intentionally direct those feelings toward me.

They decided that after Karen delivered, Mary would be the one to get pregnant next. Sam would follow her and Karen would be last before the cycle began again. All three of them wanted to get pregnant as soon as they could for they really enjoyed the constant state of sexual arousal they experienced during their first pregnancies. I suspect most of that was Cathy’s doing. I can recall Cathy telling me when she first got pregnant that she was in a continual state of arousal. I don’t know if she would have been aroused throughout her entire pregnancy, but I suspect she would have been if she had not been killed. My wives finally decided on an 8-month interval between births for it would give them more than a year for their bodies to recover between giving birth and getting pregnant again.

I generally don’t talk about it publically, but I am a very doting father. I spend a great deal of time with my kids. However, I suspect that when they become teenagers, they will want to do things with their friends and the time they spend with me will decrease significantly. From what I’ve heard, it isn’t cool for teenagers to hang out with their parents.

One day Sam and I were talking about our relationship, and I became confused about how we should refer to ourselves.

“Sam how would you classify the relationship between the four of us?”

What are you referring to Jim?”

“I started to call our relationship a four-way relationship because there are four people involved, but I wasn’t sure if that was correct. I know that a relationship between three people is referred to as a 3-way relationship. But is that because there are three people involved or is it because there are a total of three unique 2-person groupings. Furthermore, shouldn’t we consider the total number of unique groupings that can be formed with a given number of people? If you stop to work out the number of unique grouping, then with four people there are six unique groups of two people each, four unique groups of three people each, and one group of four people. So should we refer to our group as a 4-way, 6-way, or 11-way relationship?”

“That’s a weird question Jim.”

“I know. It’s just something that popped into my mind.”

“My understanding Jim is that it is the number of people in the relationship, but I don’t think any of us really care as long as we are all happy together. However, if it really matters to you, Karen, Mary, and I refer to ourselves as being in a 4-way relationship when we talk about our group.”

Yeah, I know I sometimes look at things from a weird perspective; however, my wives were used to it. Personal matters were complex to me, but business matters were usually much simpler for me to understand.

The Guidance Council and Cathy were aiding me with financial matters, and I didn’t understand their logic. Cathy said it had to do with their idea of accountability, so they divided my financial affairs into personal finances and mission finances; to me it’s all one big pot of money. The first thing they addressed was what they called my personal finances.

I had inherited Frank Ambrose’s financial investment business after Cathy died. Most of his investments, mainly real estate investments, were handled by the company, and he handled other investments personally. I wasn’t knowledgeable regarding investments, so I consolidated all of his investments and had the company manage them for me. While the company managed my finances, I learned about realty and stocks, while also working on my mission.

When Cathy decided to organize my finances, she had the Guidance Council research my investments and provide her with recommendations. The first batch of recommendations were for me to sell all of the stock that I held in three companies. The price of all three companies stock was about to drop. One company would go bankrupt, the price of the second company’s stock would quickly recover to its current level and in recovering, the third company’s stock would increase to much more than its current level.

I told the President of my investment firm, Henry Masen, some of what I expected to happen and what I wanted to do. Of course, I couldn’t reveal the real source of my information, but he agreed to do what I wanted him to do. Harry did warn me that the SEC might notice the transactions and I should have an explanation ready. Well he was right; their representative did drop by about a month after I completed my transactions.

I hadn’t been in the office that day, so over dinner one evening, Sam said, “You received a call from the SEC today. Their representative would like to talk with you about your recent stock transactions. He said that he would be in the area on another matter for at least the next two days. If possible, he would like to speak with you now instead of making a special return trip to talk with you. I made an appointment for you at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. If that is not convenient, I can change it.”

“Did he mention anything about his concern?”

“Not really, although he did indicate that the timing of the sale and purchase of three different stocks at the peaks and valleys of their price changes was very unusual.”

“I see. Harry told me they might have questions. Well I doubt he would just go away if I ignore him, so I suppose tomorrow is as good a time as any to talk with him.”

Mary asked, “What exactly does he want to discuss Jim?”

“Cathy had the Guidance Council evaluate my financial investments. Five months ago, they made a recommendation regarding three stocks that I own. Based on what Cathy told me I decided to follow their suggestions, although I did make a few minor deviations.

“According to the Guidance Council, I was to dump my C&J Metals stock because the company was having financial troubles and they projected these troubles would result in their going bankrupt. Their stock price has dropped by more than 30% since I sold their stock.

“They told me that Sam’s Smelter stock price would suffer a major drop in price due to an error their accountant made. Once the error was corrected, the stock price would recover to its current level. I immediately sold all of my stock in Sam’s Smelter and my stock in C&J Metals. I also had some stocks that weren’t performing as well as the Guidance Council would like, so I sold them also. When the Guidance Council told me the price of Sam’s Smelter stock appeared to have bottomed out, I used the proceeds from my stock sales to buy as much Sam’s Smelter stock as I could. The price recovered two days later, so I sold all of that stock to gain capital for my Simpler Products stock trades.

“The Council found out that there was an internal power struggle at Simpler Products over the release of a new product. The product was very close, but not fully ready for release. They believed once the last glitch was fixed, its release would result in a major increase in the stock’s price.

“The weaker of the two groups wanted to release the product immediately, and then fix any residual problems. This group planned to make a bid to gain control of the company. The Council believed the bid would fail and the company’s stock price would drop due to a cash flow problem. This would be a temporary situation, so as soon as the price bottomed out, I was to buy as much stock as possible. They predicted that once the product was released, the price would increase to well above its current level.

“I waited until I received a very good offer for my stock from the stronger of the two groups, and then sold them my stock. The stock price fell as the Council predicted, so when it appeared to the Council to have bottomed out, I took all of my available assets and bought Simpler Products’ stock. A month later, the product was released and the stock price is still rising.”

Mary said, “That sounds like smart investing to me Jim. Why does the SEC want to talk with you about the transactions?”

Sam replied, “Mary, there is nothing wrong with acting on this type of information as long as you don’t obtain the information from a source within the company. That is what is known as insider trading. Jim thinks that the SEC suspects him of insider trading.”

Mary said, “Well all Jim has to do is explain how he got the information and that should satisfy the SEC.”

“Mary, I can’t do that. I got my information from the Guidance Council.”

“Oh, I didn’t think about that. Do you know what their sources where?”

“No, I don’t, but it is one of the things I need to find out. If I can point to enough public sources, the SEC will probably accept that I didn’t use any inside information. Of course they will keep their eye on my future trades, so I will need to document a rationale for all of my future stock trades.”

Later that night, I contacted Cathy and explained what was happening. She got back to me early the next morning with a list of public sources for most of the information.

Sam showed Mr. Wilson into my office at 10:00 AM and introduced us. “Good morning Mr. Wilson. My secretary informed me that you wanted to discuss the stock trades I have been making recently. Is there some problem?”

“As you know, the SEC monitors the investment community for suspicious activity. One of our analysts brought your stock trades to my attention. It is not unusual for an investor to sell their stock just before the price takes a major dip and to buy stock just before a significant rise in its price. However, when a single investor makes a series of major sales and purchases of stock in just a few companies like you did recently, we start looking at the investor a bit closer. Would you mind explaining to me the rationale for the timing of your stock trades?”

“Am I correct Mr. Wilson in assuming that the SEC is concerned that I may have used insider information to decide when to make my sales and purchases?”

“I think that is a fair assumption Mr. Conrad, but we are not making any accusations at this time. We just want to understand your decisions.”

“Alright, I normally would not explain my decisions, but considering the potential problems that I might have to deal with otherwise, I will this time. A little over two years ago, I inherited the estate of my wife’s parents. At the time, I knew very little about the investment business. Since then I have made a point of learning as much as I can about investing. I focused on the real estate market at first, and then on the stock market.

“During the past six months, I have been reviewing my stock portfolio. I decided to make three passes through the portfolio. The first pass was to gain an understanding of the companies in which I held stock and in the process to note anything that warranted immediate attention. When I had finished my review, I had found and followed up on eleven stocks that warranted further investigation.

“Rather than go into the details of all those companies, are there any specific companies that caused the SEC concern?”

“Yes there were stock trades in three companies that caused our analysts to come to me. Just a minute while I get my notepad ... Ah, here it is. The companies are: C&J Metals, Sam’s Smelter, and Simpler Products.”

After a moment of consideration, I said, “Yes, I can understand how you might have some concerns. To start with, C&J Metals and Sam’s Smelter were not companies that I flagged as needing additional research. C&J Metals is probably the easiest to explain.

“I had stopped at a Denny’s restaurant for lunch one day and I was seated next to two men who were having a disagreement about the acquisition of a company. What drew my attention to their disagreement was they mentioned C&J Metals as the purchasing company. One of the men was arguing that it was a brilliant business deal that would strengthen C&J Metals for future expansion. The second man felt that the company was starting to have financial difficulties, and the purchase may have caused them to overextend their financial position.

“This of course raised a red flag in my mind for I knew I owned a large amount of C&J Metals’ stock. After lunch, I started researching C&J Metals. What I found was that both men were right. The acquisition would position C&J Metals in a very good market position. Unfortunately, C&J Metals had made several poor investments and appeared to be overextended financially. That led to me investigating what had been going on over the past four years that led to their current financial state. I saw a pattern that caused me to question the decisions that C&J Metals’ board of directors had been making. I had a bad feeling about their future profitability and decided to sell my stock immediately. As you know, their stock has been declining in price over the past months. I expect that the company will be bankrupt in the near future.”

“What was your source of information that led you to this conclusion?”

“It wasn’t one source. I searched the internet and found articles in trade journals, newspapers, and magazines. There are also reports from financial analysts and other people in the industry. I don’t recall which articles and reports I read, but the overall consensus combined with the company’s annual report to stockholders left me with a bad feeling. I’m not sure of everything that gave me that feeling, but I have had it before in other situations and learned to listen to my instincts.”

“Alright Mr. Conrad, I can accept that for I sometimes have that type of feeling myself. Why did you sell your Sam’s Smelter stock?”

“That will be easier to explain after I explained my Simpler Products’ stock transactions.

“The financial section of the newspapers reported on the Simpler Products’ annual stockholders meeting saying that there was some dissension within the company regarding the release of their new product.”

“Yes I recall reading about that in the papers.”

“Well I looked into that as part of my research. I found several social media sites where people were discussing the possibility of a takeover bid by the group that wanted an immediate release of the new product. The consensus was that the company would probably be in bad shape regardless of who won the fight.

“I started getting letters from what seemed to me to be the weaker of the two sides asking me to sell them my stock. I decided to wait for I felt they were wrong in what they wanted to do. I felt that once the battle was over, the stock price would fall, so I waited for the stronger of the two sides to make me an offer and I accepted it. I was right for in ending the takeover bid, the company put itself in a poor cash flow position, and the decline in price led to a panic sell situation. I believed that the value of the Simpler Products’ stock would increase drastically once the new product hit the marketplace. I decided that when the stock price bottomed out, I would buy as much Simpler Products stock as I could, which brings me back to my Sam’s Smelter stock.

“I learned about the probable takeover bid of Simpler Products while I was researching my holdings, and the possibility of the stock price dropping. I decided that if the price of the Simpler Products stock dropped, I would make a heavy investment in its stock. Therefore, I reviewed my stock portfolio to determine what stocks I could sell to raise additional capital. As a result of this research, I sold my C&J Metals stock and my stock holdings in four other companies; Sam’s Smelter was one of the four.

“The value of Sam’s Smelter stock started dropping several hours after I sold my stock. It didn’t seem right to me for I had investigated the company and I found it to be a financially sound and well-managed company. I suspected there had to be a mistake for the price to drop so far. I made several calls to people in the investment industry, and everyone agreed that there had to be a mistake. They were advising their investors to hold onto their stock and buy more.

“I decided that whatever the problem was, it would most likely be a short-term situation. Therefore, I immediately invested all of my available capital in Sam’s Smelter stock. Later that day, the company released a news bulletin announcing that a mistake had been made in an SEC report and provided the correction. Within two days, the stock was back to its original value so I sold my stock again.

A short time later, the takeover bid failed and the cash flow problem surfaced, the stock price started to drop. A month later, I figured Simpler Products was getting close to releasing its new product, so I invested all of my available capital in the company’s stock. Early last month, they released their new product and the stock prices have increased significantly. I project that the value of the stock will continue to rise for at least another month before stabilizing.

“I hope that helps you in understanding why I sold and purchased stock in the way I did. I can understand how the SEC might think I was making my decisions based on insider information, but that isn’t what happened.”

“Yes it did help. I will have to give the matter further consideration. It sounds reasonable, but I wish to discuss it with the analyst that brought the matter to my attention before making a decision.”

“Thank you Mr. Wilson. There is one thing more that you should be aware of that is related to this matter. As I said, these stock transactions are the result of my first pass through my stock portfolio. I have two more passes to complete before I will be happy with my holdings. I am part way through my second pass, and I have found two stocks that I sold this morning for I expect the value of the stocks to take a sharp decline in the near future.

“I suspect your analyst will probably be keeping an eye on me. If he should decide that my decisions are questionable, he is free to contact me directly. That would probably alleviate the necessity of your having to make trips to my office. Do you have any other matters that we need to address Mr. Wilson?”

“No, not at this time. I believe you have been truthful in what you said Mr. Conrad, but like you, I trust my instincts. My instincts tell me there is more to this matter than what you have said, and I would be interested in pursuing that at another time.”

“I’m not sure what you sense, but I would be happy to address it with you when you can be more definite.”

“Thank you for your time Mr. Conrad. I need to get lunch before my next meeting. Goodbye for now.”

Well, it appears that I will be seeing Mr. Wilson at some point in the future. I need to document a public source of information for any stock transactions I choose to make in the future. It may be useful for me to read up on the definition of insider information. I don’t want to be charged with that because of some oddball interpretation of the legislation.

I will also need to fill Henry Mason in on what I told Wilson in order to make sure our stories are straight, or at least similar. In particular, I don’t want him mentioning the existence of a group that advised me on what action to take.

It took another month to finish organizing my personal finances. Once Cathy said they were in reasonable shape, the Guidance Council started on my mission finances.

“Jim, my Guidance Council representative Jan and I were talking about the mission finances. The specifics we discussed were what you could develop and sell to finance the mission. We decided that since Frank and Jim are very interested in environmental issues and since they are the ones you will want to manufacture your inventions, we should have you invent a series of products that would be beneficial to the environment.”

“That seems like a good idea Cathy. What did the Guidance Council think I should invent?”

“They do not want you to stand out too much right now, so they decided on three devices that are already made on Earth. Your devices will be very advanced versions of the existing devices. They will provide you with the design of a solar cell, a storage battery, and a motor-generator. The Council thinks that you could sell these devices as individual items, but they also believe it would be highly beneficial if you integrate them into a solar powered car.”

“Alright, when will I receive the design of the items?”

“That is the dicey part Jim. If you were to just come up with the devices with no development cycle, someone would ask questions. The Council says that you will need to conduct a series of experiments that lead to the final design, which they will provide. They believe that you may need to demonstrate to people that you created the devices. It is likely to take you at least three years to design all three devices. In the interim, you can design a car that will use these devices. That will explain why you are creating three drastically different products.”

“Okay Cathy, I can see their logic and agree with it although three years seems excessive to me. How do we begin?”

“The first step will be for you to obtain a workshop. Then you are to hire some engineers and assistants. The Council thinks that you should begin work on all three devices at once. The storage battery will be the easiest to create, and the solar cell the most difficult. You will be able to make the battery in different sizes for different applications. They think you should start out with something around the size of a car battery. The motor-generators can also be built for different size vehicles and for different applications, so a car size should be your first product in this line. The solar cell will be a unique device for you will design it using a modular plug-in design that allows for multiple modules to be interconnected.”

“That seems contradictory Cathy. If the Council wants me to design and produce a revolutionary solar powered car, then won’t selling the parts that make it revolutionary be counterproductive? My competition will be using my devices in their cars, so to a consumer, functionally there would be little to no difference between my car and theirs.”

“Hum, you’re right Jim. We didn’t think of it from that point of view. Why don’t you consider if it would be best for you to become a manufacturer of automotive parts or an automobile manufacturer? I’m quite sure that there would be financial and political advantages to both.”

“What do you mean by political advantages Cathy?”

“Well if you were to sell a solar vehicle that is comparable in size and comfort, has a lower operating cost, and a lower sale price than similar gas-powered cars, then you would most likely corner the automotive market. If your car were the number one seller in a country, then that would give you enormous leverage over the government. They would be well aware of what would happen if you stopped selling and supporting your car in their country.

“Cathy, is the Guidance Council thinking that if I create an automotive line that could affect the economy of the US, that it might give us some leverage in completing the mission tasks?”

“I’m not sure Jim. No one has mentioned that scenario to me, but I wouldn’t put it past them to have that built-in as part of their overall plan.”

“Cathy, since you were elevated to the Fourth Dimension, I have noticed several things about the Guidance Council that make me wonder if they are an ethical organization. Do you think they are an ethical group?”

“I never stopped to think about it Jim. Can I get back to you on that question?”

“Sure, there’s no rush.”

After talking with Cathy, I told my wives about the conversation I had with her.

Sam the more aggressive of my three wives said, “We have a set of mission plans to finish. How will the financial aspects affect our existing plans?”

I thought about how working on the financial aspects of the mission might affect our planning effort, but did not see any conflicts. “I don’t see them affecting our plans. What Cathy wants us to do is in addition to generating the detailed plans for each task. We can begin the effort of earning money to finance the mission while we continue developing the specific way that we will approach each task.”

Mary’s quizzical look told me she had a question, “How is your creating these new products going to earn us enough money to finance the mission?”

It took me a few minutes to figure out what she was actually asking and how to explain it.

“My designing these products will not make us any money. It’s what I do with the design that will earn us the money. I basically have three options. I can sell the design for a great deal of money to people who are interested in building the three devices. I can manufacture and sell the devices myself. I can also create a partnership with someone and we will jointly manufacture and sell the devices.

“Selling the design will earn me a great deal of money, but what we need is a steady income stream. The only way that I can get that is to be involved in the manufacture and sale of the devices. My maximum return would be obtained if I manufacture and sell the devices myself, but that is a very time consuming effort and it would leave me with very little time to work on the mission tasks. That means that I need to form a partnership with someone who handles the manufacturing and sale of the current and future devices that I design. The specifics of that partnership are not clear.”

Sam looked at me rather funny, and then said, “A partnership seems fairly straight forward to me. You and a second person enter into an agreement to manufacture and sell the products and then you split the profit. What specifics did you have in mind?”

“I’m not really sure what I mean, but do you recall your comment about how the government will respond to Task 1 once they realize what we are doing?”

“Yeah, I said they would make us their #1 target.”

“That’s right Sam; the government will try to stop us. If we are in a straight partnership, our partner and the business that provides our income will also become a target. That would be disastrous to our mission financing. We need some form of partnership that the government cannot focus on to destroy our financing. I am not sure yet how to structure that partnership or how it would work. We need to give that some thought.”

“Okay, I think I see what you are saying, but what do you want us to do to help you?”

“Nothing right now Sam. I don’t recall mentioning it, but Cathy was telling me about a company called the Chocolateen Corporation. It is owned by James Schneider and Frank Toliver. She suggested that we consider a partnership with them. She also told me that their past experiences with the media might make them and their wives good candidates for assisting us with Task 2.

“I think we need to look at them to see if they are suitable for becoming partners and to see if they would be good as part of the Inner Council or if they should be part of the Task 2 Action Group.”

Karen said, “I’ve heard of the Chocolateen Corporation. They run those programs that deal with weight control and smoking cessation. I have several friends that joined their programs, and they tell me they really work. One of my friends told me she had read an article that accused them of mind control. It had something to do with a woman who had lost a great deal of weight on their program not wanting to have anything to do with her boyfriend after using their product. He claimed that they brainwashed her such that she would have nothing to do with him, and filed a lawsuit.”