DeepSouth

I don't wave flags or have any love for any country, but I also don't try to avoid taxes. I follow the laws in the place I choose to live even though I disagree with many of them (taxes included). The point of the last few posts isn't that taxes are good or bad it was that some people are claiming that the IRS going after crypto investors for taxes is a part of a bear case against crypto-investing. But the IRS wants its cut in absolutely everything you invest in, so how is that a negative only for crypto-currencies? It is a negative for people who choose to break the law (and get caught), but it has no effect on people who keep good records and pay their capital gains same as they would with stocks, or bonds, or real estate, or gold, or diamonds, or cattle futures, or anything else people invest in. It's bearish for cryptocurrencies because equity traders know they have to pay taxes on gains so they plan for the continual liquidity needs of taxes. Many bitcoin traders are anarchists who laughingly believe that the US government is simultaneously a tyrannical state and incompetent/incapable at collecting taxes, so they haven't planned to pay taxes on their gains. This is clear from how few coinbase accounts pay any taxes on their bitcoin gains. Further, the IRS will tax bitcoin realized gains as ordinary income, creating a larger liquidity needs than securities which pay lower cap gains rate. If the IRS comes after $10B in bitcoin related taxes, that will create a large amount of selling pressure on bitcoin.

Yes. And I'd argue that inflation hurts the elderly who are trying to live off of their fixed savings far far far more than it hurts the super rich who have investments which more than keep up with inflation. When you are at the grocery store and see the elderly cashier ringing up the other elderly woman's cart full of cat food you have seen the effects of inflation. no_free_lunch Well maybe I didn't explain myself correctly, I am going to pass from one subject to another, I don't understand why would you think I was only going to talk about inflation, My intention was just to start the conversation. What does it mean when you say you don't like that I am talking about inflation ? isn't it (or should I say the lack of it) part of bitcoin ? so why shouldn't I speak about it ? rkbabang I don't really think your criticism about inflation is really about inflation. Isn't it about not having proper financial planning ? If I am a retire that saved enough money why is inflation hurting me more than the 1 percent ? both of us have our wealth invested just that my money is more in a fixed income than his. still i'm getting my income stream and the market is pricing the security for proper real return. Why do you think inflation hurts the elderly "far far far more" ? There are many reasons. One is that the elderly (today's elderly) have been lied to their whole lives and thought that they would be taken care of by Social Security. Then they retire to find out that they barely get coffee money and healthcare is huge issue. Thus they have not saved enough and whatever they did save is being eaten by inflation every year so they now have to work. Also your risk tolerance is less when you need the money presently. At 30 or 40 years old you can invest in higher risk/higher return investments, but when you are retired (and you are not very wealthy) you need to both live off of your investments and try to not lose any ground. This is hard to do for the average person with no interest in investing in an inflationary environment. What ends up happening is that being risk averse leads to inflation loses. In a non-inflationary environment (or deflationary environment) you could save money if that was your intention and not have it eaten away by the year. If you did want to invest your money, then any return at all would be positive, you would only lose money if your investment actually lost money. It would make it much easier to plan for retirement, live conservatively, and know that you will always have enough. Forcing everyone into the stock market whether they wish to be investors or not just to avoid losing your wealth is not an ideal situation. Not to mention inflation in the housing market creates houses to be re-evaluated for tax purposes and the elderly end up paying much more to simply live in their paid off homes then they had ever imagined. There are all kinds of ways that inflation hurts the elderly. Government bonds have produced a positive real return this century. You've been able to sit in credit risk free investments and receive positive real returns for many decades. Even T-Bills have produced positive real return since the elderly started saving. The social security office will tell you exactly how much in benefits you will get when you retire; there is no lying involved. And the elderly are the cause of high home prices; they're the NIMBYs preventing building and infill to rent seek from younger generations who are forced then pay up for their properties. The elderly have not been lied to; they've been doing the lying while attempting to enslave younger generations of Americans. It's incomprehensible to me that anyone could feel pity for early boomers/silent generation Americans. https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=B8FDD84D-A4CD-D983-12840F52F61BA0B4

With all of the QE, do you think it is possible for it to persist? That isn't a rhetorical question, because I don't know. My gut tells me that at some point the chickens are going to come home to roost and we are going to be hit with an uncomfortable rate of price inflation. Most of my wealth is still in stocks and USD, not bitcoin, but I'm glad I have some bitcoin nonetheless. Why would swapping treasuries and GSE paper for bank reserves be inflationary? Wouldn't the first order action of stripping interest income from the private sector be a deflationary impulse? Does it look like Japan is suffering from out of control inflation?

If alphabay was actively engaged in the promotion and distribution of malware and identity theft as you say then I will concede that you are correct. If they simply setup an anonymous marketplace and didn't police it, then I will stick by my previous statements. I do think a getaway driver is just as guilty as the one who pulls the trigger. http://www.businessinsider.com/dark-web-market-alphabay-2015-11/#online-black-markets-dont-exist-on-the-normal-internet-that-most-people-think-of-1 He created one section of the marketplace explicitly for the sale of malware and another that is simply labeled "fraud" most likely where stolen credit card numbers are sold from. Screenshots in the BI article. I mean what did you think was happening, some nice guy built a website and then closed his eyes while thieves fenced stolen goods/credit card numbers/malware under his nose?

I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :( On the bright side though, I still have mine. :) What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out. Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s That's a small part of what went on there. That's like saying craigslist is bad because stolen goods are sometimes sold there. The people creating and using malware are doing something wrong, not the person running an online marketplace where things can be bought and sold. If someone finds a hitman on craigslist and pays him in cash does that mean Craigslist and the US Dollar are to blame? That is the same kind of thinking that says if someone is stabbed you blame the company who made the knife and the retailer who sold the knife rather than the person who actually committed murder. If Craigslist is actively aware of hitmen advertising themselves on Craigslist and continue to make their platform available to said hitmen then they are bad and their management should be imprisoned. Craigslist would be actively facilitating murder for hire. Are you under the impression that Craigslist actively facilitates this and would refuse to comply with authorities if hitmen classifieds are found on their site? This is insane. I'm not saying that Craigslist actively facilitates this, but let's just say compared to say ebay or Amazon, it is a lot easier to fence stolen goods, or advertize sex for hire, or even something as extreme as a hitman for hire, on Craigslist. I'm not saying that Craigslist should change, or that they are liable, I'm just saying that there are things they could do and they don't. In this case, it seems like alphabay was actively engaged in the promotion and distribution of malware and identity theft portfolios. Assuming you are a libertarian ideologue, both of those things should count as aggression/violence. Just as someone who fences knowingly stolen goods has responsibility in the chain of the crime whether they stole those goods or not, so does a platform that knowingly and actively enables these crimes. It's very disturbing that you believe this is a heroic action. It's like you don't think a getaway driver should be held liable for a drive by shooting because he didn't pull the trigger, he only actively facilitated the crime, and therefore should be lauded and rewarded as a hero.

I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :( On the bright side though, I still have mine. :) What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out. Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s That's a small part of what went on there. That's like saying craigslist is bad because stolen goods are sometimes sold there. The people creating and using malware are doing something wrong, not the person running an online marketplace where things can be bought and sold. If someone finds a hitman on craigslist and pays him in cash does that mean Craigslist and the US Dollar are to blame? That is the same kind of thinking that says if someone is stabbed you blame the company who made the knife and the retailer who sold the knife rather than the person who actually committed murder. If Craigslist is actively aware of hitmen advertising themselves on Craigslist and continue to make their platform available to said hitmen then they are bad and their management should be imprisoned. Craigslist would be actively facilitating murder for hire. Are you under the impression that Craigslist actively facilitates this and would refuse to comply with authorities if hitmen classifieds are found on their site? This is insane.

I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :( On the bright side though, I still have mine. :) What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out. Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s

Um, BRK invested in the TXU LBO bonds and lost $900mm.

VaR (value at risk) was near perfect super computed mathematical model of risk right? How'd that work out in 2008....? If there is garbage data in the system (and any system with humans contains it because we're not rational and do weird things that don't make sense) then you can't predict anything with perfect accuracy. VaR specifically doesn't measure risk of losses in times like late 2008. That's not the point of the metric.

When you Canadians compare the US to other developed countries in regards to healthcare you are missing the most crucial element. The American government (federal and state) implicitly or even explicitly drafts effectively all healthcare legislature to raise the cost of healthcare. Banning Medicare negotiation of drug prices, banning Medicare from factoring costs into procedure evaluation, HMO regulation to increase their costs, cost for service model enforcement, banning re-importation of drugs, etc. Of course the out of control healthcare inflation spiral began coincident to the Great Society legislation. All this is done because American politicians care more about the healthcare industry than the taxpayer and the voter is too dumb to care about costs. I see no reason why single payer wouldn't just exacerbate this.

There's economies of scale in the industry (procurement, insurance processing, etc). There are two large players followed by a large amount of single site operations. Pricing allows the single sites to stay in business which drives high margins for davita and fresenius. At least that's how its been explained to me.

The main issue with this is FCX's precarious financial situation and that the leases can expire if not drilled/the GULTU units will expire in 18 years. FCX is burning several billion per year due to low Cu/crude prices while it builds out Grasberg and ramps up its Gulf O&G properties. GULTU's 2014 10-K explains that FCX will let 13 of its interests leaseholds expire from lack of drilling in 2015 (all interests except Lafitte, Highlander, Lineham Creek, some of Tortuga). To add, "Near-term activities on all subject interests except for the onshore Highlander subject interest have been deferred." At this point the GULTU value effectively rests on Highlander and Lineham Creek interests. For the Highlander well, there's 38BCF of proved, 197BCF of PPP, and 2TCF of add'l estimated resources on the play. If we take these numbers at face value, make no discount for time value (or for the fact that the units expire in 2033) at $3/mcf at the 3.6% interest, the proved is worth ~5% of GULTU's 110MM market cap, the ppp is worth ~10% of market cap (on a 90/50/10 basis) and the entire highlander resources is equivalent to 250% of market cap (on a 100% basis - not discounted for higher risk probable/possible reserves). In effect, you need ~10 strongly performing wells to get your money back at today's GULTU price, without factoring in time value of money or the expiration of the trust. With these ultra-deep wells costing $250MM each to drill and develop (and are geologically extreme and require novel methods), the ROI meager at $3/mcf, and FCX very capital constrained, I don't think this will hit the mark. This would be more interesting at $.10-.20 per unit, if Nat Gas makes a strong move higher, or if FCX's capital constraints dissipate from a large rise in Cu/crude prices. That said, I'm not an O&G analyst, so I'm by no means an expert (and this is definitely an industry that can be difficult for generalists).

These are the natural results of the Asian development model where a financially repressive government forces savings up and mainly drives them into low interest rate bank deposits. See Michael Pettis' writing for deeper discussion.

My favorite example from recent weeks is a social media company symbol MEET. As I read their disclosures, they are paying something around 10% of their market cap per year to the executives as stock-based compensation, then they very conveniently create a bogus non-GAAP "Adjusted EBITDA" valuation measure that takes out that stock based compensation. Why is this kind of thing even legal. It's disgusting and it is theft from shareholders in plain sight. Maybe one way to raise awareness of this problem would be to have a regulation that requires a company that uses a non-GAAP earnings metric to *always* include the GAAP metric side by side. That way if they use their bogus "Adjusted EBITDA" measure 100 times in a filing, the true GAAP EBITDA will appear 100 times as well, immediately next to the bogus reference. Retail investors will be more likely to ask questions about how to reconcile the two numbers if they see both side by side many times. Take away the power of companies to use lies - exclusively - in their public filings. I believe TWTR paid more in stock-based comp LTM than they generated in revenues, and that comp isn't an expense in their adjusted EBITDA measure. Most software/tech companies exclude stock-based comp from adjusted EBITDA.