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Daily Speculations The Web Site of Victor Niederhoffer & Laurel Kenner Dedicated to the scientific method, free markets, deflating ballyhoo, creating value, and laughter; a forum for us to use our meager abilities to make the world of specinvestments a better place. |
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8/24/04:
Conifers, by Victor Niederhoffer
Briefly, trees need to be either safe or efficient in transporting water up the tree trunk, the main problem with being a tree. the conifers have small cells to be safe, and the deciduous ones wide cells to be efficient.
The conifers in boreal forests are a piece of work as they preclude any competitors from developing. First, they have small cells for safety, to ward off the embolisms to which they are prone in cold climates. Next, they have their frost-tolerant needles. Then, they shade out all other trees and foliage because they grow all year round. Further, their needles fall to the forest floor and last so long they form an acid that inhibits anything else from growing. Finally, their branches point downward to allow snow to slide off, and they grow far enough apart so the ground between them freezes (tundra), and nothing else can grow. (Naturalists, please excuse my hasty summary.) It reminds me so much of the Sage. Constantly saying you shouldn't buy any other companies, that the world's coming to an end, that you should eschew growth, that everyone else should be taxed into tundra, et al.