I swam with sharks.

I swam with sharks and lived to tell the tale.

I attended the World Money show in London which is an event for financial traders. Where is the pleasure in associating with people who spend their entire lives in the pursuit of unearned riches? Trading is a zero sum game. It is not economically productive in the way that investing in a company may be. The only way to make money trading is to take it from another trader and in this way it resembles a roulette table as much as anything else. The difference is that the market is not random. It contains pattens hidden within it and if you are the first guy to see the patten you may sweep the winnings from the table.

One problem is that the human brain is a machine for seeing pattens- even when they do not exist. Think of gazing at passing clouds as a child. Each of the clouds resembled something to you- a face, a duck, a cow and yet they were all entirely random. Another child may look upon the same cloud and see something entirely different. There is one school of economics (the efficient market hypothesis) that states that ALL market activity is random in one sense. This means all attempts to read the market (as opposed to the economy) is futile and amounts to no more than projecting meaning on to chaos.

Why then is this such an exciting world? Firstly there is the possibility of escape from my present situation. A man without capital cannot invest his way out of poverty as the returns are so low. He can on the other hand trade his way to freedom because it is possible to double his money in a few hours.

More importantly the world of trading offers escape from everyday worries. As a trader I worry about the dollar and the euro. I do not worry about my own petty problems.

The world of trading is rather like the world of pickup in that there are some superstar traders who never in fact trade. How could they when they spend their entire lives going from one conference to the next and writing books?  The main difference is that it is possible to see the trading charlatans for free at the money show while it costs a great deal of money to go to a boot camp.

The money show is all about selling the dream- and the 'pick up artists' of the trading world are willing to spend their own money in order to do this.

I soon understood the rules of the game. The event was set up to part wealthy dreamers from their money. If a man is to be relieved of his money his judgement must first be clouded by greed. This means that the mark must be made to feel like a winner. To this end he is showered with gifts. I won wine, chocolate and an iPod Nano. In addition to this I had the pleasure of drinking much free wine and beer that was provided by people who wished to ruin me. This is always the sweetest kind. The whole game resembled the trickery of the card sharp. The card trickster will always allow the mark to win the first hand of any card game because this is an investment for him. It makes the mark feel like a winner even though he has the word 'loser' written across his face. The only way to win this game is to leave the table after the first round.

The final event resembled some dreadful parody of the last night on the Titanic. Latin American waitresses came bearing pieces of fish and spiced meat on sticks. I am sure they were used to more polite gatherings where guests would take a single stick and move on. I saw the shock of one waitress as another woman took ten sticks with each hand to clear her entire tray in a single swoop. There was no shame as she did this- she was simply entering into the spirit of the event. Predator or prey I wondered? Which was I?

All of this was quite amusing as long as the wine flowed and the waitresses continued to return with fresh food. Outside the trade unions were planning their general strike. Anonymous were occupying 83 cities across the globe and maybe the waitresses talk of revolution amongst themselves when they are not smiling.

I left the party when the cocktails ran out. I was pleasantly drunk and had two carrier bags of free gifts to take home with me. I had been one of the fortunate ones. I had left the table after the first game and had taken my winnings with me.