Well, first it's pretty clear that people who go long stock promotions have never seen "The Producers," but we can get back to that.

Anyway, the most important thing I've learned from REFR - or had confirmed - is that basically no valuation metric has any connection whatsoever to the price of a stock. Because so little actual cash flows from public companies into the hands of their owners, the only connection between stock prices and the actual free cash generated by the underlying businesses happens in the M&A and LBO markets.

The other important thing I've learned is that the way to get rich in America is to sell stories. People will pay lots of hard cash for good stories - particularly ones about them getting rich.

The key to a good story is transition. The stories that sell best are those in which things transform in an unexplained way. This is the key to the magic trick and the infomercial. A mysterious transformation is as attractive to members of the species Homo sapiens as catnip is to members of the species Felis catus. Try to sell a better mousetrap and you'll go broke. Sell magic and you can't go wrong. Your story must have a little secret - a blank page onto which people can project their emotions.

I've also learned that in America - maybe everywhere - it is essential to be close to the money. The closer you are to people who handle lots of money, the more likely it is you will be able to sell your story - whatever that story may be.

Finally: "Hide In Plain Sight". One thing you can never do when selling a story is question the premise. This is essential. If your story is a little weak, so what? Stay on script. Getting way more money than you deserve is not a question of being surreptitious or deceitful. At the end of the day, it's a question of having the nerve to be as forthright as possible. People will be suspicious of even the cleverest thief. The way to divert that suspicion is make your story as believable as possible - therefore as true as possible - and just stick to it.

Consistency and the appearance of openness inspire confidence. The confidence of some produces confidence in others. Business is, after all, a confidence game.