Ross812
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Posts posted by Ross812
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1 hour ago, stahleyp said:
Sorry but I don't remember the verses you're talking about. Where does it say 12-14?
On 3/14/2023 at 1:16 PM, Ross812 said:Ezekiel 16:7-8:
7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.
Summarized: If there is grass on the field, play ball. This is pedophilia by today's mores... You are picking and choosing which parts you like and asserting it is the moral north star.
1 hour ago, stahleyp said:I understand your point about the parable the camel and eye of the needle. I don't disagree but I do think it's about what one is focused on (and Jesus didn't say it was impossible).
"Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" Luke 18:25. Jesus says - "You got a snowball's chance in hell" and you take that to mean: "so there's a chance!"
Rather than argue this point, which is inconvenient for us living in a capitalist society, teachers (preachers) search for a way to soften the blow. Demonstrated by your response - "its more about what one is focused on."
The same can be said for your repeated questions about slavery. You interpret slavery as being wrong due to conflicting with your interpretation of the golden rule. The bible is chock full of references to slavery and has the old testament Hebrew laws regarding slavery as highlighted by @ValueArb. The Bible has been used to both support and condemn slavery according to the morality of the day. Why did Jesus not denounce the practice if it is indeed amoral in God's eyes?
2 hours ago, stahleyp said:As far as Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism goes...I can break that down. Christianity is, as you are probably aware, a branch of Judaism. The only real difference is that Christians believe Jesus was resurrected and Jews do not. Jews do not believe Jesus is the Messiah since they do not think he meets the criteria as they understand it.
Islam is (sort of) also a branch of Judaism. I see no reason to believe it's true and I have probably heard nearly every argument for it. My foundation is that moral truth exists and there is a way we "ought" to act beyond our opinion or social norms. Mohammed married a 6 year old (Aisha) when he was 50 and consummated the marriage when she was 9. (multiple Islamic sources for that if you want me to look them up) Muslims claim Mohammed was the standard of morality...I disagree.
Regarding Hinduism, my wife was raised Hindu and I've gone to various Hindu festivities. In my (humble opinion) I see little reason for it to be true (no evidence Ganesh was real, for instance). However, it does have reincarnation which is an interesting concept. There is some academic research to support that as a possibility (mostly through the work of Ian Stevenson).
I am sure the other religions look at the practice of eating the body and drinking the blood of the Christian Christ to be pretty crazy too. As for Mohammed and Aisha - yeah I have read the debate. The rules were the same in Mohammed's day as in Ezekiel's and Jesus's - a woman (girl by today's standards) is old enough to marry once she is through puberty. There is also some discrepancy about how old she actually was - hadiths (similar to the Jewish Talmud) says she was somewhere between 9 and 19 when married. Regardless, there were what we would consider child marriages going on left and right in both Jesus's and Mohamed's time.
I too studied all the religions and came to the opposite conclusion as you. They are either all right - religion is the map, not the territory (God) or they are all wrong - God is a construct to advance social harmony.
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35 minutes ago, stahleyp said:
1) That is somewhat true. We can have social rules and goals and call that morality. I'm saying that it isn't true in any real sense though. It is more akin to fashion or mannerism than any "ought to do" or "ought not to do". We make the rules and anything can be "good" if we deem it as such. It's all about framing. Eliminating "undesirables" is "good" for human genetics, for instance. Or eliminating other tribes can be "good" for long term peace. Literally, anything can be "good" if we frame it as such.
2, 3, and 4 can be answered like this.
Let's say we invent a time machine and drop off a board game to people 500 years ago (Society A), 1,000 years ago (Society B) and 5,000 years ago (Society C). Each of those societies would create their own rules, right? Would it make sense for Society A to judge B and C? Each one create their own rules!
It is irrational to think that slavery is "wrong" beyond today's popular opinion if there is no moral authority that supersedes all cultures/times/etc. Each society, ultimately, just makes up their own rules to the game. By what bases do we have to judge them? Our "reason" and "culture"? They have that too!
This started on the Disney thread and protecting children from the liberal agenda of the day. You are arguing on a forum full of rich people trying to get richer. There is that whole parable about a rich man trying to get into heaven is like a camel fitting through the eye of a needle, so you are clearly following the parts of the message you like and skimming over the other less convenient lessons.
On second thought, Mary was 12-16 when she had Jesus and I recited the verse from the Bible about when a girl is ready for marriage (12-14); so your definition of a child is influenced by society - not God. You keep bringing up a circular argument about slavery - and how can we believe it is immoral if not for God, but Jesus had nothing to say on the matter and the old testament is full of slavery. If slavery was wrong according to Christianity, it should say something pretty explicitly in the 775k word text. So your feelings on who is considered a child, the morality of slavery, and pursuit of wealth are all influenced by the society you live in.
Which God or interpretation of God does morality come from? You say you studied all the religions and Christianity made the most sense to you. The devout Muslim doesn't drink or loan money with interest as they are sins in their religion and there are good reasons these are viewed as sins. Consider for a moment, there are Jew, Hindus, and Muslims who are far more intelligent and rational than yourself who have reasoned their way into their beliefs. Who is right? If only one is the way to eternal life - I hope Christianity is the way for your sake - though most (all) Christians follow the lite version today - so who knows. Maybe they are all right - but that would mean religious morality is influenced by culture because surely God didn't make different rules for different groups if there is a moral north star. Maybe they are all wrong...
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On 5/12/2023 at 2:24 PM, DooDiligence said:
The name of this thread should be changed to philosophical circle jerk.
I'll quote my response when this started in the Disney thread 10 weeks ago:
On 3/3/2023 at 2:31 PM, Ross812 said:Jesus, not this again. Cue the circular reasoning in 3. 2. 1...
Every morality related post on COBF ends up as a circular argument between @stahleyp and whoever chooses to engage at the time.
@stahleyp what is your goal of engaging?
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Bough a little more Nintendo this morning brining it to a 5% position. Added a little bit to DFIN yesterday and sold a few $40 puts on CASH.
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Added to USB and CASH.
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Sold half of my Meta shares today and added quite a bit to Fairfax and Deutsche Telekom.
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Our 401ks have brokerage windows. One only allows ETFs, the other is a full Schwab account. I invest in individual equities in my taxable and Roth accounts. I like the ETF/BRK portfolio above because its lower volatility while matching or beating the S&P.
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On 4/11/2023 at 6:58 PM, james22 said:
Interesting to me that no one else seems to be factor investing.
Or even index sector investing.
Huh.
The portfolio I shared was my Roth IRA which I trade in. The majority of my money is invested in indexes:
25% Utilities
20% Healthcare
20% Consumer staples (small cap)
10% Nasdaq
10% Berkshire
10% Gold
5% Small cap value
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Treasuries - 16%
Googl - 12%
Meta - 12%
Dfin - 7%
Bti - 6%
Brk.b - 6%
Ffh.to - 6%
Mkl - 6%
Jpm - 4%
Luv -4%
Ntdoy - 4%
Iac - 4%
Ostk - 3%
Usb - 3%
Deutch Telekom- 3%
Clpr - 3%
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Brk.B and Deutsche Telekom
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11 minutes ago, stahleyp said:
You do realize this is in reference to Jerusalem and not a person, right?
Oh! Equating the Jerusalem to naked with a girl fresh out of puberty who god "mounted and entered a covenant with" was the best way to get the point across. Got it. I'd probably choose a more appropriate analogy, but you do you man.
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12 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:
The month over month data is showing specifically services as the single biggest problem.....if you look at my posts from months ago you'll see me speak about domestically produced goods and services as the source of the problem and given that America produces actually very few goods it consumes and is mainly a service led economy this is where the inflation is showing up....Why? Because services costs are mainly driven by domestic wages. And we have unusually high wage increases.
In the last inflation report just released service costs are continuing to rise at 0.5% monthly clip......not in 2022, not during COVID, not in weird base effects or YoY quirks .........right here, right now........that's 6% annualized.......service items include things like package delivery, haircuts, hotels, gardening services etc etc. Its a long long list....if it doesn't come off a factory line, its a service.
So thats services..........the problem with inflation and the story from previous inflationary bouts is that if it present in one significant sub-category long enough, say services in this case, it in time transmits or flares back up in other categories........inflation has its own long and variable lags across categories.....services inflation sitting at 6% as it is........almost ensures in time that we will see domestic goods prices 'flare up' again later this year.
Inflation then since Spring 22 on a YoY basis, moment in time......across all categories averaged out is likely running at 5.x%ish....modestly below the YoY prints with a higher numbers we are seeing in headline CPI.
Based on current MoM reports and seeing really services as the problem....and knowing services make up ~77% of the USA economy as per 2021 data.....short hand, back of the envelope math then would be 6% inflation in services with other categories CURRENTLY showing modest inflation or none.....
6% haircut by its proportion of the US GNP (77%) =
4.62%
is my estimate of CURRENT contemporaneous inflation driven almost wholly by services.
That 4.62% estimate lines up pretty well with my model of looking at only two other data points.....nominal spending/income/wage growth (BLS data) against productivity growth.........again the delta there suggests we should have mid-4's inflation in 2023...simply based on the MoM payroll increases we saw in Jan.....against the common sense idea that the USA does not have any easy output (productivity) wins left with unemployment at 3.7%.
As much as we may want it to - inflation is not just going to 'go away' by itself that idea is not supported by the data....it will require a change in aggregate nominal spending and/or a productivity output miracle....if we rule out miracles.....its going to require spending to fall significantly...given there are only two sources of funds for spending in the real economy.....credit & income (jobs).....credit needs to get whacked......but credit fueled spending is only a small part of TOTAL spend.....income from jobs is the most important source of spending........hence JPow might not say it......but creating some level of unemployment is going to be required here to rein in spending growth such that it exceeds productivity growth by only 2%...and we get 'back to 2'
If only there were some way the government could reduce income progressively impacting the higher earners more than the lower earners...
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Sold TMUS - bought USB
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@Gregmal what is the correct course of action? We have had a decade of ZIRP which resulted in hard equities and RE to inflate while goods, services, and average wages stayed put. Continuing ZIRP into the future isn't healthy and doesn't allow for loose monetary policy when things crash. Part of the reason we got the helicopter money in 2020/21 was because we started with low rates. If we had entered 2020 at 5-6% I would imagine we would have seen a far different outcome. The current hiking cycle should have stared in 2016 and certainly shouldn't have been abandoned in 2018/19.
We have had -
13 years of ZIRP
Interest rates hiked then cut again in 18/19
A huge tax cut effectively stimulating the economy
Further rate cuts to 0 and helicopter money
A forced year of saving
Tax increases and rate increases are the way out, but the former is unpalatable so we are left with rate increases and tightening the money supply. What else can be done?
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13 minutes ago, stahleyp said:
I do think morality can be known by focusing on God and not our own desires. God is the source of moral goodness (ie what is moral and not). Or as Jesus said:
"“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone." Luke 18:19
Ancient Rome allowed for war rape and Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece were very open about all types of sexual relationships. That isn't far different?
Ezekiel 16:7-8:
7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.
Summarized: If there is grass on the field, play ball. This is pedophilia by today's mores... You are picking and choosing which parts you like and asserting it is the moral north star.
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Anyone seeing First Republic Bank (FRC) down 65% premarket?
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2 minutes ago, stahleyp said:
By "is that fair?" I didn't mean it be fair/equal type of thing; I meant it as more of a "am I condensing your thought accurately?" type of fair.
Right but just because people think Nazis are "bad' doesn't mean they are, right? It's an opinion. Or back to the Ancient Rome and rape, if we believe rape to be good, it's good, correct?
Good and bad is a social construct. Murder is largely universally wrong - unless, we are fighting a war... Individuals have refused to fight on religious beliefs and have suffered the consequences for going against the prevailing mor of society that "this bad group" is ok to kill.
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4 minutes ago, stahleyp said:
So would it be rational to override this social construct when we think it's in our best interest or benefit outweighs the risk?
It is absolutely rational to override the social construct when it is to your best interest or outweighs the risk. That is how new mores are developed - say marriage equality, abolition of slavery etc. You better be ready for the consequences when you go against the social construction! If you can't build a consensus for your new mor, you are going to get steam rolled.
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The prevailing view of the time had a problem with the morals of Nazis, slavery, the Taliban etc. The victors found the morals of the former groups so abhorrent wars were fought. Sic semper tyrannis.
The culture wars of today are the result of a group seeking to change an existing social norm. Some are taking their mores based on a 2000 year old text, others from a purely conservative point of view not wanting change, some want change for gain more personal freedom, and some thoughtfully consider the change and form an opinion one way or the other.
The 2000 year old text eventually seems to support the mores of the day. I seem to remember some passages about giving up possessions and something about a rich man getting into heaven is like a camel passing through the eye of a needle, but we tend to adhere to what is convenient. The good book supports slavery, until it doesn't.
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5 minutes ago, stahleyp said:
My point is that rape isn't actually "wrong." It's really just an action started by a bunch of chemicals.
Only our opinion of it makes it that way. If we grew up in Ancient Rome, we might even think of rape as "good" since they used war rape. Is that fair?
I think you get it now. Morality is a social construct. There is some biological hardwiring passed down through evolution like empathy that are advantageous to a group as a whole helping the group work together more efficiently. The concept of god and religion is a social construct to enforce the morality of a group and enhance cooperation.
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I always pay special attention to @wabuffo, @Parsad, and @ERICOPOLY. Eric hasn't posted seriously in a while, but go back in the archives and read his option/warrant plays on BAC and I owe a good chunk of my NW to him. For ideas I drill through ownership filings on TIKR. I make a game out of looking at high conviction positions for minor funds and reverse engineering their position. Going through their previous wins and losses gives me a pretty good idea of their game plan.
I also hold a lot of the popular stocks mentioned on COBF because you all make it so damn easy to keep up with stuff. Shout out to @Gregmal for some great RE ideas (APTS), though I'm still not convinced about JOE.
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9 minutes ago, Ross812 said:
0.25 Mar15'24 - 91282CBR1 - $100k @ an average price of $95.053 - YTW - 5.198%
I guess I goofed and didn't account for the extra 13 days so its 5.02%
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1 hour ago, gfp said:
How did you get 5.2%? What is the CUSIP and what price did you pay?
0.25 Mar15'24 - 91282CBR1 - $100k @ an average price of $95.053 - YTW - 5.198%
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I bought some LUV and 1-yr T-Bills yielding 5.2%. The minimum at FIDO is $1K and no transaction fee. At IB there is a $5 TF and $1K minimum.
Moral philosophy transplanted from Disney thread
in General Discussion
Posted
Not joking. Jewish people of the time and I imagine most of humanity until a few hundred years ago married off girls after puberty. The passage in Ezekiel just goes to show the norms (morals?) of the time. Surely the author was not describing a statutory rape to exemplify the bond between God and Jerusalem?
It sounds like he is saying sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and devote your life to following me. It sounds like you are trying to qualify Jesus's words with a convenient explanation "perfect". A rich man has a snow balls chance in hell of making it to heaven. So there is a chance?! Honestly, I don't care. I'm just pointing out the inconsistency between Christians advocating protecting children when marrying off young girls was routine in the Bible, and Jesus, in his own words, is blatant about the trappings of wealth, but the same Christians do mental gymnastics to justify holding their wealth.
Maybe Jesus never said anything about it because it was not considered wrong at the time. Maybe it was justified by a couple thousand years of previous scripture? Maybe it is not wrong according to God? Clearly the moral standard of the immorality of slavery is set by society and not by God. How can slavery be wrong if Jesus never said it was wrong?
Mishkat al-Masabih, vol. 3, p. 300-301
Yes, I agree each society makes up the rules as they see fit. It is the only answer I can come up with when considering Jesus thought slavery was moral (at the very least the morality of wealth deserved more attention than the morality of slavery) and I myself do not.
Loaning money with interest is a sin according to the Quran and outlawed by the Catholic church until 1000 (church then needed to borrow money for the crusades so and exception was made). Loaning money for interest was not practiced by Christian laymen until the 1500's. Is owning WFC, BAC, JPM, USB a sin? For a Muslim, it is today - For a Christian, it was from 300 AD till sometime in the 1500's. The old testament is pretty prescriptive regarding usury just like with slavery and Jesus was silent on both issues. It seems like our modern opinion of slavery and usury are shaped by society and we are not following the word of God on either...