rkbabang

Ericopoly, Before asking the government to tax "unhealthy" foods in a futile attempt to get the government to do some "good", maybe you should first try to get them to stop doing harm. Stop the truly massive subsidies for corn and corn products (like corn syrup) or the protection of the US sugar growers for instance. Stop telling every school child from coast to coast that carbohydrates should be the base of their diet with the "food pyramid" that is based solely on politics not on science. Be careful what you wish for when it comes to government. If you get them to tax "unhealthy food", what we will most likely see is a tax on high fat and high calorie foods and more subsidies for high carbohydrate foods. Which is exactly the opposite of taxing bad calories and subsidizing good calories. If you think ADM, Monsanto, etc will stand for taxes on corn syrup you are kidding yourself. If you don't think the US government does and always will do what ADM, Monsanto, etc.. want them to do, you are really kidding yourself. The politicians know what side their bread is buttered on. Read Gary Taubes books, they are a real eye opener. The entire nutrition policy of the US government is based on politics not science. This will not change. What we can do is educate people. The more people know the truth, the harder it will be for the government to get away with pushing its agenda on the public. People don't need taxes, they need information. Information based on scientific evidence, not politics. Anyway, just an opinion from the weird-kid table. Great post, BTW, where you linked to http://themedicalbiochemistrypage.org/lipid-synthesis.html Taubes goes in to much of this in Good Calories, Bad Calories, but going through that site I was reading about Krill oil. Right now I'm taking fish oil, I might try switching to Krill oil instead. Thanks, --Eric

"California COULD Be Struck By Winter Superstorm" "Could" being the operative world. California could be struck by a major earthquake, a tsunami, a meteorite, a nuclear missile, plague, locusts, pestilence, .... or not. --Eric

Gary Taubes - Why We Get Fat lecture. http://videomedia2.swedish.org/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=cd8c7aa15bc94a0486f4ee9b66ef8f8f

BTW, I've lost 18lbs in the last two weeks You must be losing a lot of fluid? Are you bleeding? Fat has about 3,500 (working from memory) calories per pound. In 14 days, you haven't lost 18 lbs of fat. I never said it was all fat. The first lbs that come off easily on any diet. Low carb or low calorie are always water, not fat or muscle. I will not loose 18lbs in the next 2 weeks. --Eric

I just finished that book a few weeks ago, then I read his follow-on book "Why We Get Fat", which is much shorter. It summarizes his first book then goes on to talk about a few more studies that have been done since "Good Calories, Bad Calories" was published in 2006. I would recommend everyone read both of these whether or not you have a weight problem/diabetes/heart disease/etc. It will change the way you look at food and the science of nutrition, as well as all the politics involved. BTW, I've lost 18lbs in the last two weeks and feel better than I have in years. Also I've been drinking my coffee black with no sugar for about 15 years, it just happens to fit into my new diet nicely. --Eric

No one obviously needs this, although I'm sure many will order it. I'll stick to my usual though. A Grande brewed coffee(hot or iced) black w/no sugar. Or sometimes I just ask for 3 shots of espresso, again no cream, no milk (steamed or otherwise), nor any sugar. I like coffee and espresso that's it. Most people seem to like hot coffee-flavored-sweetened milk and 6000 calorie cold coffee milkshakes. To each their own. That's what makes the market work. If nobody buys these Starbucks will stop offering them. And even if everybody else buys these, you still don't have to. --Eric

FRFHF works in my Fidelity accounts as well. I had one account with firstrade.com which didn't allow me to purchase pinksheet stocks, so I transferred the assets in that account to Fidelity. Fidelity is only $1 more per trade than firstrade.com now anyway. Years ago the difference in fees was significant. --Eric

I've had a couple of damn good years. Using Fidelity's "Person rate of return" feature, it will report my return for any time period in the last 24 months. 01/01/2010 to 12/31/2010 = 21.2% 01/06/2009 to 01/05/2011 (the longest period Fidelity will allow me to calculate it) = 107.2% One of my best trades this year was buying Netflix $120 2012 calls on July 22nd for $21.10 and selling half of them on Oct 21st for $66.95 and the other half on Nov 22nd for $78.00. This past year I also did well selling BH around $380; holding CMG (100+%), SAM (100+%), FRFHF.PK, MIDD (~80%), HDB(~40%); and buying XOM at $59.56 Now, if only I could do those kinds of returns consistently... --Eric

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Responds to Whitney Tilson: Cover Your Short Position. Now. "I have to agree with my friend Whitney that there are many risks ahead for Netflix, that our valuation is substantial, and that it is possible that one could make money shorting Netflix today. But shorting a market leading firm as it is driving a huge new market is a very gutsy call." --Eric

Kiltacular, with some minor exceptions I think we do probably agree more than disagree. I'm also sorry for being a little flippant in my reply to you. Religion is obviously still around, although it is no longer the tool the elite use to control and fleece the masses. I look forward to a day where governments are equally powerless. Kept around for tradition and ceremonies and such, but hold no real power. Sort of like the Royal Family in England. jb85, the evidence I was talking about was the video at the start of this thread. Watch it carefully. You can see that the progress in those two metrics slowed down considerably in their rate of increase for the US and the other North American and European nations after about the 1940's. Turn off the sound and watch the replay of the chart animation at the end. It is a marked slow down. If this data isn't accurate than my apologies for pointing it out. 2% per year GDP growth isn't anything to sneeze at, but for per-capita income and life expectancy the rate of growth has slowed down considerably from what it was. I didn't claim that it had stopped, only that it might. There is nothing inherently wrong with "bunching" if everyone is growing, but if everyone is bunched and stagnated that certainly isn't the ideal situation. I'd rather the future look like the early part of the animation where everyone is growing at a fast pace, even if some grow much faster than others. ValueCarl, Thanks, I too think the internet is the most important technology today to keep us free and progressing. Information and communication has always been of primary importance. I'm troubled about how the U.S. government is behaving right now. We have people calling for Jullian Assange to be assassinated. We have people calling him a terrorist. Scary times. All while claiming to support free speech and freedom of the press. The hypocrisy on both the left and the right is just staggering. "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency." --Barack Obama "Wikileaks is deplorable." --Barack Obama --Eric

Huh? Do you disagree that the video showed a distinct slow down in the rate of progress in those two metrics in the US after the WWII and new deal years? If so, watch the video again. The rest of your comments are too chock full of non sequiturs and logical contradictions to even reply to. But I will say this, if leading universities are now teaching something other than human farming techniques such as socialism and big-government democracy, I wasn't aware of the change. I've yet to hear about the free-market anarchism curriculum at Harvard. I'll have to look into that. --Eric

On the other hand, it shows how the Westernized nations, especially the U.S., slowed way down after about 1948, sitting basically still, moving only incrementally forward while the rest of the world caught up. If the trend continues you will see a new "bunching" of the entire world at the same level as you did 200+ years ago during the dark ages where stagnation was the rule. The dominance of religion was the cause the first time around, the dominance of the state is the cause now. Hopefully this relatively stagnant "dark age" will not last 1000 years and I don't think it will. The internet is the equivalent of Gutenberg's printing press. Look at wikileaks. Government will be shown for what it is. Just as much a fraud as religion, a tool to rule the many by the few and farm them of their resources under the guise of helping and/or protecting them. Human tax farming will either have to end or the would-be human farmers will have to find a new strategy to fool the masses.

I have a Nook. It is excellent for book reading (fiction and non-fiction) and has a rudimentary slow browser for web access. I couldn't live without the ePub support, so I will never switch to Kindle. I've never actually bought a book from B&N, all of my books are either epub or pdf, but like the smaller Kindle you can't comfortably read SEC filings, I've tried, the tables and charts are too small to read. Books in pdf format with only text are fine, but other pdf files are difficult. I still read them on my desktop or laptop. I've never used an ipad or the KindleDX, so I can't comment on those. --Eric

Marx's class theory is just plain wrong. There are, and always have been through out human history, only 2 classes. These classes are separated by a gun (or a sword if you go back a few hundred years). What matters isn't race, sex, religion, or wealth. What matters is which side of the gun you are on. You are either master or slave. I put the lowly bureaucrat making 25K per year in the master class that is part of the problem, and the entrepreneur making $10M per year in the slave class along with you and me. If Marx would have defined his classes as such, Marxism would be a very different philosophy. --Eric

Some of us, apparently nowhere near the majority, have a moral code. Mine is that the initiation of force or fraud is wrong. This means that actions like murder and theft are bad. And furthermore I have the insane belief that it is just as morally wrong to delegate theft or murder to a third party as it is to do it yourself. The person hiring the hit-men are just as guilty as the hit-men. And I have the still nuttier belief that it is just as wrong for a group of people to commit, or delegate, theft or murder as it is for an individual to do so. Having ten people, a million people, or even a billion people, in your group doesn't make theft or murder moral. Might doesn't make right. Now, I know most people wouldn't agree with my above statements and so have no problem with the way things are, but if you do agree with me then please answer the following question: How is war not murder and taxation not theft? The only way to justify such things is to say, sure theft and murder are wrong when one or two people do it, but they are just fine if tens of million vote for it. The whole "common good" nonsense. You can justify evil anyway you please, but I don't buy it and want no part of it. I also find it telling that WEB says all the time that he thinks he should be taxed more, but when he chooses to give his money away he doesn't simply give it all to the federal government or even a portion of it. Why is that? Maybe he doesn't think that is the best place for *HIS* money, but he apparently thinks it is the best place for other people's money. Funny how differently people will spend their own money from how they advocate the forced spending of other people's assets. --Eric

Around 30%

The state is like a cancer, it may start out small, but it grows and grows consuming more and more resources until it kills the body/society. It's happened again and again throughout history. IMHO, We need to find a cure. --Eric

3) If only we just vote the right people in we can change things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd-SLRyuRq0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCEXtpTNYU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A

Interesting talk on how monkeys make the same financial mistakes that humans do. "If you were thinking about hiring a monkey financial adviser, don't do it because he'll probably be just as dumb as the one you already have" --Eric

A different business model. Panera Bread Co. opens nonprofit restaurant where customers can pay what they want --Eric

One time I wanted to report vandalism to my property, so I grabbed the phone book and looked up the number for my local police. They listed 2 numbers, a "business" number for the police station and "emergency call 911". I called the business number, got the police station, and was told to report a crime I had to hang up and dial 911. This is a small town, nothing like Oakland, so maybe the procedure is different elsewhere. --Eric

Anyone living unarmed in Oakland is nuts (even before this). --Eric (gun nut), RKBAbang.com I've never stockpiled food though.

OMG, that is exactly what it sounds like. He's going to pay himself by the terms of the incentive agreement whether the shareholders approve or not. I've already sold most of my BH, but I kept a hundred shares figuring I'd let them ride, vote them against the proposal, and see what happens. I'm thinking about getting out completely now. This guy just can't be trusted. --Eric

It sounds to me that he is doing just that. I still don't understand how the journalist didn't talk to this guy for about 3 minutes and move on. And how an editor let this through, and with that headline. --Eric

I agree. It's one thing to be an unambitious lazy bum that wants his parents to support him his whole life unless the perfect job (whatever that is) is thrown into his lap from the sky. It's another thing to want the New York Times to broadcast that fact to the world. What an idiot. Now no one who does a quick google search on his name and reads this story is going to hire this loser. And what's the matter with the reporter? In this economy he really couldn't find a truly sad case to write about? Things must be better than I thought. --Eric