RichardGibbons

Hmm. When my first kid was born, I bought life insurance when my death would put my family in a hard situation financially. I got rid of it a decade later when we had enough money that my death would be no more than an inconvenience. So I guess my life insurance was never required since I chose to remove it later?

Am I missing something? Write puts means go short puts, which increase in value when the stock falls. So, you're saying if management screws up, the share price plummets, and the short puts skyrocket. Wouldn't the loss on the short puts cause severe losses in the plan rather than large profits? Or do you mean write calls?

The left's hysterical overreaction has set the bar so low that all Trump needs to win over another term is not be Hitler. He isn't bothered by the the Hitler/facist comparisons, and probably hopes they continue. #MasterStroke You're starting to understand. Keep going, and you'll soon be miles ahead of the all the "experts" in the media, and DC politicians. LOL, on this thread, onyx1 reminds me of John Scalzi's discussion of Trump today:

Absolutely. Nevertheless, this is big in my mind. Pretty well everyone who has watched the guy campaign should expect extreme, thoughtless actions and gross incompetence out of Trump. However, incompetence combined with an unwillingness to correct obvious mistakes is far worse than mere incompetence. And, before this, it seemed much more likely that we'd be in the former scenario than the latter. Now, I have some hope that it might be the latter. So, I wouldn't dispute that anyone qualified to be President would've gotten this basic thing right in the first place. Nevertheless, I think it's admirable to correct this obvious mistake rather than obstinately refusing to correct it out of pride.

I respect Trump for this change today. He's not a thoughtful guy, so everyone should expect many mistakes from him in one of the most complicated jobs in the world. But in this case, he could have remained rigid and let the courts fight about it for months. Instead, he recognized the mistake and wasn't to proud to correct it. That's much more than I expected from him. Well done, Trump.

It sounds like a cultural problem with Detroit police (or simply a perception you have of the world). I obviously don't know much about the situation, so it's pretty hard to diagnose it. But if people aren't doing their jobs, typically you'd fire them, be they police officers, judges, or politicians. And really, if you think your solution is the only real solution, you should attempt to get rid of the police force and justice system entirely, and just go with vigilante justice. Why waste money on a system that isn't working?

This sounds like it makes sense, but it really doesn't. I repeat--Vancouver, where guns are illegal, hasn't had a single cop shooting for 30 years. This area includes the east side, called by the BBC the "Drug Central" of North America. It might surprise you, but there aren't actually manned border stations on the edges of cities where they take away all the dangerous fruits, vegetables, and guns. If a kid pees in the shallow edge of the pool, you're going to be swimming in piss, even if you're halfway across the pool using the diving board. I guess it's a bit different in this case in that you actually have millions of kids all over the country peeing in the pool. DTEJD1997, in places where law enforcement is incapable of protecting its citizen, I'd suggest making guns illegal throughout the country to make the job far easier for law enforcement, increasing taxes and throwing the money toward cop and judges, and federally prosecuting corrupt cops and judges.

This is interesting to me--does anyone actually have evidence of this? Education Systems: Canada has more private education? Or less public funding per capita? Immigration Laws: USA has more per capital immigration and less stringent requirements? I can believe that, but I'm curious if there is actual evidence for that. Regulatory Burdens: This surprises me if it's true. That said, Canada is far less litigation-prone, which might result in less need for stupid regulations. The Rule of law: Does this mean USA's laws are more liberal? Punishments less harsh? This is interesting to me, considering that, as far as I know, Canada doesn't have the death penalty, nor the skewed incarceration rate by ethnicity, nor the lack of gun controls, nor widespread civil forfeiture. Or maybe he's just weighting contract law and property rights greatly? Corruption: This one confuses me, because I've always thought of corruption as orthogonal to degree of conservatism. Canada is less corrupt, but why does that mean it's more conservative? So yeah, it would be interesting understanding the reasoning these conclusions.

Okay, I suppose that you can argue that statistics about homicides by guns are completely irrelevant to a discussion about homicides by guns. It's not the way I would approach the discussion if I wanted to prove my point, but you and I think differently. Since you prefer the murder rate, USA has about 5 murders for every 2 that Canada has. Therefore, I'll assume that you'll concede the point that gun-control makes sense if you actually care about keeping people alive. (Some fun trivia: on February 2nd, we'll hit the 30th anniversary of the last time a cop was killed by a gun in Vancouver. Also--since we care about all cop murders, not just gun ones--the last time a cop was killed in Vancouver.) I see. As long as you exclude every place that you don't like, and restrict the area of comparison to a tiny geographical area comprised of less than 0.5% of the country's population, then gun ownership doesn't matter at all. Are you listening to yourself? Next time you analyse a business, I suggest you exclude all the money the company spends on salaries--it'll make it look really profitable! So what you're saying is that the US is inherently more violent, and so therefore it's great to ensure all these inherently violent people have guns? Hmm. It kind of amuses me that Trump's been implying that the immigrants are the criminals, but from what you say, it would probably be better diluting the inherent American aggressiveness by increasing the number of peaceful immigrants. :) With respect to the UK, let's look at the situation. (I know you tend to throw out statements out without bothering with facts or evidence, but it's helpful to me when the conversation is actually grounded in reality.) http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2313942-1974D490000005DC-694_634x522.jpg So, this chart isn't adjusted by population size. Thus, all else being equal, you'd expect every line in this chart to trend up as the population increases. Yet what do we see since the 1997 gun ban? Homicides down. Violent crimes went way up, and then down. Net of everything, violent crimes are up about 10-15% despite the population growth since 1997. So this doesn't support your argument either. At best, we have lower homicides and roughly equivalent violent crimes. That said, I'm starting to understand why you throw out these statements without any supporting evidence. You know, I understand that with you, when there's a conflict between your ideology and facts, ideology always wins. But you'd save everyone some time and be more persuasive if next time, you'd just say, "I think freedom to bear arms is more important than reducing the number of men, woman, and children who die from guns." (Seriously. I can respect that position over these half-hearted attempts to pretend that gun control wouldn't work. I think, for instance, that privacy should trump spying on Americans in an attempt to root out terrorists, even if allowing Americans privacy would result in more Americans being killed by terrorists. That's basically a completely parallel argument to the one you should be making on gun control.) That's a valid point. It certainly wouldn't be easy getting to reasonable gun control, and may not be worth the effort.

Yeah, why would anyone think that banning guns would have any effect on gun deaths? If Emperor Trump has taught us anything, it's that people should make all decisions based on blind ideology and not even bother looking at the data such as the firearm-related homicide rate for countries with and without guns. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/11925/c-g/c-g04-eng.gif

You completely missed the guy's point. Yeah, why on earth would Cardboard think that Trump represented the fascist side? :)

Yeah, that's a perfect example of what I meant by "everyone's so focused on defending their ideology to the point of irrationality". We could have a productive discussion that allows some of the great libertarian ideas to actually be adopted for the benefit of the nation. Instead, you'd rather cling to this ridiculous notion of governmental violence that, while true in theory, makes absolutely no sense in practice.

The point is that there's value in discussing ideas and making an effort to fight against ideas that you think are tremendously destructive. Most people are reluctant to change their minds once they have espoused a particular view. Thus, there's value in showing public opinion before people make up their minds. For instance, if a communist were elected, I think there would be a lot of value in making it very clear that people don't want their businesses nationalized and private property taken away. If you just get along and accept it, as you suggest you would do, then the communist leader won't hesitate to implement all their ideology. If 1% of the population protests, then they'll think twice about nationalizing everything because they know that there will have a real fight on their hands. That said, I agree somewhat in spirit with your point. Ideally, we would be in the situation to have a win-win exchange of ideas, for everyone to share their thoughts and identify the best way to run the country. There's ideas from the right that make sense, and there ideas from the left that make sense. But nobody sees any of the good ideas because everyone's so focused on defending their ideology to the point of irrationality. And how do you get to an open discussion of ideas if the person at the top is demonstrably lying about the most trivial of facts? The core problem is that politics today is viewed as more of a sporting event with winners and losers than a co-operative endeavor where, through spirited debate, we're constantly trying to find the optimal solution for the country.

Yeah, I think this thing where the president creates "alternative facts" (i.e. lies) and people interpret it as "calling out the press" is particularly disturbing. I mean, the evidence is right there. Everyone can see it. Yet people on this thread interpret these blatant lies as "calling out the press", for no reason I can understand. I understand partisanship, but not at this extreme, not even close to this extreme. Like, do you actually want to live in a country where your president lies openly to you? Do you actually want to live in a country where the government literally controls the media? It's very odd to me that anyone can look at these "alternative facts", and actually claim that it's a good thing. On the other hand, it has helped me with one thing. I look at all these countries that are communist, fascist, dictatorships, Venezuela etc. and I think, "how did that country end up that way? Why did the people so easily surrender their free press and freedom?". Then these threads come along and help me answer that question. (Mostly with variants of, "I don't care if he puts everyone in the country in shackles as long as he improves the economy.")

To me, this is a pretty low bar for genius, which I typically consider to be less than 1% of the population. The way I see it, it was a self-avowed billionaire with a successful TV show, recognized by I imagine at least 75% of the population, running against probably the most hated and vilified woman in the USA. Despite these massive advantages, he wasn't even able to win the popular vote. So that doesn't pass this 1% test in my mind. That said, I still think it was a noteworthy accomplishment, just not even close to genius level. Maybe it's just a terminology issue, because I do think it was impressive. For me, political genius level would be some schmuck on the street deciding today that he wanted to run, and winning the presidency in 2020. Or Obama winning a third term. I think you're right that he'll also target the things you say, and if he's successful, those will be massive changes. Of the ones you mention, the targeting of immigrants worries me the most, since I don't think it's nearly as hard as people think for a major superpower to slip into a fascist state. I'm right with you on the emerging markets thing. I've been considering FNDE and VWO.

Fair enough. For future reference, if you're not interested in having a political discussion, it would be wise to refrain from saying things like "this was a failure of Obama's; you can't look at it any other way". I see. Your reasoning is: Trump won when people think he couldn't. Therefore Trump is a political genius. That's an interesting perspective, for sure. I think you make a very good point about wanting a legacy for his ego, and that he might be willing to work with Democrats for votes on key legislation. In a way, that's terrifying to me, since I don't trust his judgement to chose a legacy that's good for both USA and humanity as a whole. (e.g. maybe his legacy will be the normalization of the use of nuclear weapons in conflicts. Or, like Obama, the continued expansion of the surveillance state.) Yeah, the globalization stuff is really interesting. Three or four years ago, I thought the anti-globalization guys were naïve tree-huggers. Now I think I actually understand where they're coming from. I don't see a good solution to many of their concerns, but it'll be interesting to see how their increasing political influence changes the world over the next couple decades.

I can be kind of simple sometimes, so I don't see the genius. Can you explain the genius to me? Do you just mean stating that America was a failure because of foreigners and people who are not white, and that only he could save it? Or do you see it as something more than that? To me, it actually looked a lot like Obama's first campaign with the addition of overt xenophobia. Interesting point of view. I'm pretty convinced that it's because of automation and globalization. If you automate away a bunch of jobs and send the rest away to countries that pay employees less, you'd expect most first world countries to suck wind. I'll believe you if you can do the following: convince me to type the phrase "ideology turns your brain into cabbage" on this thread once more after this post. If you can't, then clearly this is your failure, and only your failure because you should've done whatever possible to get me to say that phrase. The gridlock was because the Republicans refused to govern while a Democrat controlled the White House. Now that Republicans control Congress, the Senate, and the White House, this gridlock doesn't actually exist anymore. Thus, I suspect the only gridlock will be in areas where Trump deviates from Republican dogma. (And I'd say the same thing if the Democrats controlled all three institutions as well.) The gridlock will return any time the Democrats control the White House but not the Congress or Senate, because the Republicans have learnt that voters won't punish them for refusing to govern.

FTFY.

Yeah, this is a pretty terrible deal for the preferred shareholders. I'll vote my series E shares against it. I also expressed my displeasure to their Investor Relations folks here.

Ah, I see. Your assertion that they're center left is sufficient evidence in your mind. But while you've struggled to find any indications that they are left-wing, they've done quite a few right wing things. Here's a few: Cracking the hospital unions Cutting back on public education Cutting taxes to grow deficits Public/private partnerships Toll bridges rather than public bridges Cutting funding for healthcare Privatizing components of the healthcare system Massive cuts to legal aid services Cutting early childhood and literacy programs Cutting income assistance programs Eliminating environmental programs Releasing the agricultural land reserves to developers Privatizing BC Gas Cuts to mental health and addiction facilities Public private partnerships That said, I understand that your thoughts on this topic might not be well-formed, and that in a pinch, it's much easiest to assume that because the party is called Liberal, it's actually, um, liberal. Though, if you've been planning to vacation this summer in the Democratic Republic of Korea, watch out. It's really not what you think it is....

Exactly. The federal Liberals are center-left. The BC Provincial Liberals are center-right conservatives in everything but name. Just out of curiosity, Cardboard, what major actions have the BC Provincial Liberals taken that lead you to conclude that they are a left-wing party? The only thing that immediately comes to mind for me is the carbon tax.

I think the other factor when thinking about the Provincial election is the dearth of the alternatives. At the federal level, both the Liberals and Conservatives are reasonable options most of the time. At the provincial level, the primary alternative is the NDP, which is a total non-starter for many people. It would be helpful if there were a center-left provincial party to balance the center-right Liberals party.

I think it's also important to put this in the political context, that a significant chunk of Christy Clark's pay comes from condo developers. And those condo developers were annoyed that Clark didn't give them advance notice of the foreign buyer's tax. So, this allows her to give a kickback directly to the condo industry while framing the loan as helping first-time buyers. It's clearly bad encouraging people to buy overvalued properties that they can't afford by giving them money when they aren't disciplined enough to save up a down payment themselves. But it's great for Bob Rennie.

Yeah, totally! Why would anyone care about desertification? Food isn't nearly as important as being able to drive monster trucks really cheaply! http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/agm/publications/documents/wmo_cc_desertif_foldout_en.pdf

The math is as follows. Suppose oil is in contango, meaning that the near term contracts are cheaper than the long term contracts. Suppose spot oil is trading at $45, while the near term contract is at $47. Time passes, so the price of the near term contract needs to decrease, so it falls from $47 to $45.50 with 2 weeks left until expiration. But then that contract is going to disappear, so it needs to be rolled out to a later contract. But since oil is in contango, that contract will be more expensive--say $47 again. So then the ETF is selling the $45.50 contract and buying the $47 contract, so it's essentially lost $1.50 as a result of time decay. If you keep on buying at $47 an selling at $45.50, you constantly lose money, causing the value of USO to decline.