Jun

29

Hollywood has learned much of Slab City, and Slab City of Hollywood in the past week of cinematography.
 
When you compare a movie highlight reel to the blooper outtakes, and it makes you feel worse, you’re on the wrong road leading from Slab City. No great film can compare to its outtakes, as the Hollywood crew of the movie ‘The Slabs’ discovered this past week when I was their ‘fixer’ who rose to assistant director. Bloopers have universal appeal, as movies may be made of them. These are the behind-the-scenes slips that you won’t see from a theater seat.
 

Hollywood And Slab City Collide continued…

Jun

28

S&P500 finally made new highs, as inflation PCE highest since 1991, but everything's woke 2021/06/25

Jun

28

I hadn’t mentioned George Soros for decades until recently because there was no reason to. I don’t read the news and didn’t know a world stand he has climbed to. The fact is I met him hoboing.
 
I boarded a Seaboard freight in Jacksonville, FL and held down flatcars, boxcars, grainers, vans, and containers for two weeks along the east coast to land in Newark, NY. I alighted from a boxcar on the ballast to behold, across the Hudson River, the skyrise of Manhattan. It was an easy stroll through a traffic tunnel into the center of the financial world. I caught a subway to the upper east side, and ran into the raised eyebrows of a doorman in a brownstone, who buzzed up to announce to Victor Niederhoffer, ‘A hobo is here.’
 
Niederhoffer in the mid-90s was the #1 commodities speculator in the nation for four years running. ‘Doc Bo,’ he pinched his nose. ‘I knew you’d be coming one year or another. Jump in the shower, and I’ll lay out clothes for you. We’re going out to eat.’
 
Ten minutes later I had traded my bib overalls for a suitcoat with an apple core and a $100 bill in the pockets. The coat describes the character of Niederhoffer, who had managed George Soros’ Quantum Funds, famous for breaking the Bank of England, before striking out on his own.
 
We took a cab to the esteemed Four Seasons on East 52nd. The table of five included George and his wife Susan, Victor and his wife Gail, and me. It was Thanksgiving, so the order was automatic. I was surprised no drinkers sat at our table.
 
‘How did you like the meal?’ Soros soon asked. I answered with my mouth full, ‘It mashes any Thanksgiving dinner at missions across the country.’ Soros called the chef to our table and made me repeat. I did, and couldn’t understand why the chef laughed, because savory is as much a result of hunger as palate.
 
There was an hour table talk of financial and political dessert that I didn’t partake. My value is always on empty pockets to survive by my wits, with the fewer dollars the more adventures to tell to be treated to such a feast. I felt like the Elephant Man of London celebrated for being different.
 
Thirsty from the long railroad ride, I guzzled bottles of Perrier, until asking one of five waters for a restroom. He pointed to a basement elevator, where I stepped out into the clutch of a man in a tuxedo who yoked me by the elbow to an open urinal. He stood behind like a shadow in a rank of other gents relieving ourselves with towels on the crooks of their arms in case of splashes.
I returned to our party where the table conversation was wound down, and Soros suggested I ride with him and his wife to their Long Island home to meet their 10-year old son. It was proposed that I become his bodyguard, in an era where kidnapping and ransom of children of the wealthy was in vogue. I was shocked and happy when the position was not cleared.
Soros offered instead a game of chess. We played two, with me winning the first with white using a King’s Gambit, and he the second with white using a Queen’s Gambit. He asked where I had learned to push the pieces, and I replied that while my plate was never full the first twenty years of my life, the chess board at our Idaho house always was. I had matriculated across the states to junior chess champion of Jackson, MI. ‘But’ I told him, ‘You have a better chess mind, and if we played more I should be at the losing end.’
 
He grunted competitively, and explained that he had been a baggage boy on a Hungarian railroad, and graduated a philosopher from university before attacking finance. That explained the man to my satisfaction. He owned a hermetically sealed mind from philosophy, was an objectivist, a self-honest fair man, and cheered the working underdog. He concluded instead of a tiebreaker, ‘You have a chip on your shoulder,’ and I cannot help but think he was talking about himself.
 
We met a few times later over the years in Manhattan. I did go on a 13-country tour of the world emerging markets in search of moderate risk with high, fast payoffs in 2nd-and-3rd countries having fresh exchanges that were becoming engaged with global markets. I spent a week each in India, Siri Lanka, Philippines, Indonesia, Korean, Thailand, and others to identify opportunities for Niederhoffer and, later on, Soros. The former made millions per day for weeks from my overnight dispatches of the low life indicators. These are the signs of economic times from the ground up including the length of cigarette butts and price of prostitutes. The honeymoon ended with ‘Black Tuesday’ when Niederhoffer lost much of his net worth due to my non-exacting observations in Thailand and to a quirk in the market.
 
Later, I was sent by the pair, Niederhoffer and Soros, to seed capitalism around the globe. I became Michael Anthony of the TV series ‘The Millionaire’ forty years hence taking cash into 3rd world countries to distribute $3 -5000 each to individuals who met my two criteria of self-honesty and a strong idea for a capitalist venture. These folks on three continents had get-rich thoughts without startup capital for a shoeshine stand, taxi business, barber shop, English school, and a hotdog stand where the delicacy was untasted. I carried cash since ATMs were nonexistent and traveler’s checks were nonnegotiable in backwater towns. The tour ended in Caracas where I was stabbed multiple times with a knife, causing superficial bleeding because of a coat of armor of $100 greenbacks sewn in my clothes that protected me, and robbed. I left on lighter feet, and the project terminated.
 
The Soros I knew was self-honest, which meant the truth hurt but fooling yourself will enslave you. He was fair so attracted birds of a feather. He was also a libertarian who advocates minimal state intervention in the free market and private lives of citizens, granting the right to anyone to go to heaven or hell in his own way. I don’t know if he’s changed, but note he has risen to global influence.

Jun

24

Opportunities in De-Fi tokens explained. Uniswap, Curve, Synthetix, PolkaDot, Yearn?

Jun

20

quote of day of extreme relevance: "A hundred years of faster and bigger transport has kept up and intensified this bombardment of every country by foreign species brought accidentally or on purpose by vessel and by air and also over land from that used to be isolated… the real thing is that we are living in a period of the world's history when the mingling of thousands of kinds of organisms from different parts of the world is setting up terrific dislocations in nature. We are seeing huge changes in the natural population balances of the world." Elton, 1958. The Ecology of Invasion by Animals and Plants. the key to crypto moves.
 
A reader expands:
 
Chair has pointed to N. Shigesada's work on Biological Invasions. The three phases before saturation are covered on p. 27 with many examples from plants, insects and humans for each.
 
A key concept is the Range Distance. Consider a new species, for example the Muskrat unknown in Europe before 1905. In 1905 five muskrats escaped from a farm near Prague; in the next 20 years they spread through all of Germany and Austria-Hungary in a pattern of roughly concentric circles on a map. The range  distance is defined as the square root of the occupied area divided by sqrt(pi). (there are also some other formulas for cases of highly non-concentric spread).
 
How does the Range Distance look like when plotted against time? There are 3 patterns that occur again and again.
 
In the initial establishment phase the range distance shows no increase. After this the Expansion Phase begins.
 
In the simplest and most common case Type 1, it shows linear growth. In the case of the muskrat it is pretty remarkable how close the observations come to a straight line. In the next phase the Saturation Phase the curve levels off and becomes a horizontal straight line.
 
Type 2 called biphasic expansion shows a slow initial linear spread, followed by linear spread at a higher rate. This was seen for the Himalyan thar, the European Starling and European finch, and the Japanese beetle.
 
Type 3 expansion shows a slope constantly increasing over time, resulting in an exponential looking curve. Nevertheless even in this case the Saturation phase follows and the slope decreases to zero. I assume the expansion of cryptocurrencies may be of the Type3 although I have never seen it drawn.
 
There are various explanations for these phases (for example why is there an Establishment Phase with no growth at all) that I will skip over for now. Hope this clarifies a few things. 

Jun

18

Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?

Jun

17

Fans of large numbers say that if a foot falls in the arctic circle it can be felt via causality all the way to sea level in Slab City. This is true if you believe in causality which is chain of events within the realm of large numbers. Causality is the principal that everything has a cause, and causes an action. Chain of events is a number of actions and their effect that result in a particular outcome. Large numbers is the law of the highly interactive world that as a sample size grows, anything can and will happen.
 
Look at yourself in a mirror. This concept makes miracles the rule rather than exception, but my story has more meaning to me.
  
Chain of events is as hardened as #12 steel. These are the links:
 
• In 1979, I beat Miss World with a tennis shoe that led, 35 years later, to meeting the #1 kingpin of the Slabs.
• After beating her with my left Converse in a Sports Illustrated exhibition at Okemos, MI, I asked her out to McDonalds.
• We made love in the back of my ’74 Chevy van. She murmured, ‘That’s my first orgasm. I can’t wait to tell my girlfriends.’ 
• The lady’s photo, actually Miss World Runner-Up from Dearborn, MI, and me holding the Chuck ran in a SI article as evidence.  
• In 2013, my property on the fringe of the Chocolate Mountain bombing range was pillaged and burned by Slab brassers. I chased them in my faithful Converse Chucks with a plastic squirt gun in my pocket. I settled in the Slabs, tracing my stolen articles. 
• The first stop was the Slab kingpin who didn’t take nor have the booty. He heard about Miss World, and asked for proof, and on seeing the photo asked for advice. I became his medical and legal counsel for two years from 2013-5. 
 
If you do not believe this then you don’t believe in cause-and-effect within the context of the law of large numbers to grasp how, mathematically, random brute force can overcome precise logic. This is exactly what happened when I raised the shoe that caused the orgasm that introduced me to the kingpin, and all the other blessings of Slab City.

Jun

10

After reading more about Professor Bejan, am looking at winning /losing streaks in a quite a new way.  
Not just in markets, tennis (Nadal /french open…), but also in politics of course.  Many yrs ago, I met a descendant of Oberst von Stauffenberg - the fellow who tried to assisinate Hitler back in '44.   And we spoke about why none of the assisinatiions (there were so many) work?  Now I know why.  Because Hitler was in a bull-market.

Jun

10

Diversity , native American. tv commercials at least 100 to 1 in favor of persons of color compared to steml very bull.

In honor of 4 great men, George, Stigler, Steve Stigler, James Lorie, and Arthur Niederhoffer, one will attend their 30th consecutive memorial in Chicago Monday, Susan is very concerned that I may not make it back. Do your best.

The movements of prices of markets have been compared to many things, ( I have not been remiss in this regard) , random walks, ball room dancing (darvis), football downs, sonata forms , traffic flows, etc, kindly add a few but one that I have not seen before that I believe is quite apt is bird watching. many minutes of waiting with nothing happening , then a seconds of a flurry as the birds come into sight, the best times for bird watching in markets (et) are 3.48 pm, 930 pm, 330 am . (these times must be tested)

Jun

10

Prices are as deceptive as any flora or fauna in nature. they use all the techniques that they naturally have from evolution as well as a million depletive traits that they have learned from nature and culture I shave about 3o feet from my price and trading setup. I have live prices in both places. it takes me about10 second to put down my razor and sprint to the trading. today was typical. I take on stroke of the razor down, and I not that sp is 2084.50. I know from past quantifications that before employment this is very bull. I rush to the trading setup. about 8 seconds. by the time I get to the trading room, price has risen to 4284.50 ( correction) to 4292 a typical happening . solution don't shave and spend every second at trading but nature knows i cant do this because of ageism and stroke. so its not possible for me t profit from deception. but one has to admire the exility of the deception which is recurring and just for me. other deceptions are just for you.

Sumo bout takes 60 seconds many twists turn, holds strategies in just 60 seconds. its very fast paced and compressed. like the prices in 3 seconds they move a world. what other events have as much exciting happening in a short time? 

You might think that the solution is to use limit orders but even in the off hours the high frequency boys beat you o every price. you mite think this unfair and that corrective actions to conquer the high frequency is appropriate. but if you try it, and are too obvious you could get fined 1000 times the amount a issue and have to beg not to go to jail. at a hearing concerning your attempt to even the paying field, you must give away all your rites and appeal to the mercy of the stat committee not to behead or hang you pair of pants . not tooo low and not tooo high. good for infrastructure and reflection of socialist programs past and future both sides of disunity can berate the other that the numbers show bad or good as the numbers were apparently set at a meeting at the camp de rigeur am short until 9 am

Okay I shave a pyrrhic victory so many if only if only I didn't have foot drop I could reached trading in 5 seconds. I made reasonable on my longs broke even at 4208 on my shorts. if only I ha done what I wanted to do. and I held all my longs at 4179 if only I am still angry. I try again at 1030

Jun

8

"The fact is that, except in rare cases, man is not a reasoning being. He is dominated by authority, and when the facts are not in accord with the view imposed by authority, so much the worse for the facts. They may and indeed must win in the long run; but in the meantime the world gropes needlessly in darkness and endures much suffering that might have been avoided."
William H. Bates  (Opthamologist).  1921 (New York)
Dr Bates was a very curious man, and an idealist, and he encouraged his patients to see whether they needed corrective lenses at all (or perhaps weaker lenses were sufficient.) The more general point for us is that we often don't test things in life or markets enough and maybe we don't even know what we ought to test.  Glad to be part of this group for markets though as large institutions often keep ppl in sort of a trance and hinder curiosity.
https://www.bettereyesightnow.com/blog/31377-what-we-believe-affects-what-we-see

May

25

Jack Cook writes:

UBS, Nomura Fined $450 Million For Bond Cartel Chatroom Collusion

Thursday, May 20, 2021 - 03:16 PM

As if having clueless prime brokers who just cost them hundreds of millions in losses wasn't enough, on Thursday morning Nomura and UBS, both of which were hammered by the Archegos implosion, were hit with another heft fine totaling 371 million euros ($452 million) by the European Union for colluding on euro government bond trading during the region’s sovereign debt crisis.

UBS was fined €172 million and Nomura will have to pay €129.6 million for participating in a traders’ cartel that swapped commercially sensitive information from 2007 to 2011 when eurozone bond yields soared; UniCredit was fined 69 million euros, according to Bloomberg.

Today's fines are the culmination of the EU spending the past decade probing how bank traders swapped information in chatrooms. At the same time it approved billions of euros in government support to keep many European lenders alive during the financial crisis.

The EU said traders on European government bond desks were in regular contact, mainly on Bloomberg terminal chatrooms, where they “informed and updated each other on their prices and volumes offered in the run-up” to eurozone government bond auctions “and the prices shown to their customers or to the market in general.”

Citigroup, RBS and JPMorgan were among five banks that agreed in 2019 to pay EU fines of over 1 billion euros for colluding on foreign-exchange trading strategies. Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Credit Agricole were fined about 28.5 million euros last month over chatrooms where traders swapped information on trading of U.S. supra-sovereign, sovereign and agency bonds. The EU is still investigating some banks for a related cartel.

It was “unacceptable, that in the middle of the financial crisis, when many financial institutions had to be rescued by public funding these investment banks colluded in this market at the expense of EU member states,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief, said in an emailed statement according to Bloomberg. Her criticism appears to have been aimed at two banks that weren’t fined. A Royal Bank of Scotland Group unit escaped a fine because it was the first to tell regulators. It received a U.K. bailout in 2008. Portigon, the successor bank to bailed-out and failed German lender WestLB, avoided a levy because it had no revenue last year.

Bank of America Corp. and Natixis SA participated in the cartel but weren’t fined because they had quit the cartel five years before the EU started its probe. While the euro-bond fines are far lower than previous EU cartels, they do allow the banks’ customers sue for damages if they can prove higher costs were passed on to them.

The news was not what UBS shareholders wanted to hear just weeks after the bank sheepishly revealed that it too had been hammered by Archegos, if not quite as badly as its cross-town rival; the bank said the fine could hurt second-quarter results by as much as $100 million. It’s considering an appeal and has “taken appropriate action years ago to mitigate and improve processes,” it said in a statement.

For its part, Nomura said the fine “relates to historic behavior” by two former employees “for an approximate 10-month period in 2011.” The bank “will consider all options, including an appeal” and “has introduced increased measures to ensure that we conduct our business with the highest levels of integrity,” it said in an emailed statement

Other banks were also unhappy: UniCredit “vigorously contests” the fine and will appeal to the EU courts, it said in a statement. The bank “maintains that the findings do not demonstrate any wrongdoing.”

Because since when do banks view criminal rigging of markets as a "wrongdoing."

Bud Conrad  writes

Thanks for the report.

The on-going fines sound big, but they keep coming. I don't have the numbers, but I guess that the profits are much larger than the fines. More importantly nobody goes to jail. The result is that the new crop comes along to repeat the scams and rigging. The banks pay huge bonuses. Nothing changes. The banks just consider modest fines as a cost of doing business, and the regulators often don't prosecute even what problems are revealed. 

The US SEC never investigated Madoff, even when they were given the scam on a silver platter. My interpretation after Clayton is that the SEC doesn't want to mess up markets by doing their job. They let CEO Musk openly lie and only slap him on the wrist, because they said they wouldn't want to hurt the shareholders. It was Madoff running out of money and turning himself in, to then die in jail. In the electronic world we have better tracking, but I think they will have better ways to cover up their processes.  Maybe Europe is better, but I doubt.

May

20

Covid

May 20, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Bo Keely writes:

Some will sneeze at my advice not to get the Covid vaccine. My credential is having studied epidemiology ad nauseum @ university, and being notified months before Covid came to USA that ‘the next war will not be nuclear but biological, and it will come from China.’ Coronavirus to me is a sham, just a strong cold. People don’t how many millions similar colds have been killing annually for centuries. The cold season was my sub-teaching heyday not because the regulars died, but they were laid up for days. So, my advice is not to get the vaccine. You get it, they will just release another strain demanding a new vaccine. It's a pre-planned money maker. 

Larry Williams writes

Amen

Vaccine is not a vaccine that stops you from getting anything; It only abates the symptoms. Ask the Yankees

May

20

Penny Brown writes:

So now Fauci comes out with saying that the real death rate might have been much higher - in the range of over 900,000 not the 560,000 number  - so that the cost benefit analysis looks a little better and he can't be faulted.

Steve Ellison  writes

900,000 seems way too high. The Occam's Razor starting point for an estimate would be 504,000, the increase in total US deaths in 2020 compared to 2019, as cited here:  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234

May

20

Starting may 10 3 reds followed by two green and this week starting with may 17 , 3 reds in a row. Mr. David hand would say this is manifestation of randomness.

https://amazon.com/Improbability-Principle-Coincidences-Miracles-Events/dp/1427258821… I say it s not random, in predictive sense.

Nice rise in gold in last 20 days from 1748 t to 1870 

He who not be mentioned pint scout the similarity of herd like behavior of oxe, birds, cats, and humans to not having to scratch on a living for themselves. everything market move is stimulus bill. the more likely the more bull

Nice article in newspaper that may not be mentioned on suppression of science articles that are not double blind but have ample supportive evidence from social media platforms.

Its a collaborators birthday today and I'm taking her to a fish dinner and thru with mutton for a day.

My favorite fish dinner is at Sam's bush street petrale with some pancake anisette from 60 years ago

looks like I may having barnacles and whelk

Perhaps some turtle soup is left.

Thought for a minute it would be collaborators treat

There stands Mr. Sogi preventing me from ordering a full bottle of the expensive sauterne 

May

20

Camp meeting between infrastructure twins of opposite sex was particularly important as all American showing sighs of mortality.

Apparently the minutes were cryptic music must have distracted temporarily.

What's all the talk about tapering how will that engender the pickle ball infrastructure in Orange county.

This will be played at new facility in Orange country.

Very poor emphasis of slice at net rather than hard too.

A sendoff worthy of Patrick O Brian and Captain crozier and Professor Bejan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxDkffIKzCs

May

20

Finally got a reservation at Keenes.

May

20

Ordered take out mutton, only goat beats mutton for start of hard day.

Nock has a beaut passage about the birds outside of his window. they're fed by the housekeepers and they forgot or don't wish anymore to scratch up a living for themselves. Elmer Kelton has a similar passage about the cat in the bard versus the car in the house. the former

The cat in barn can spot ,neutralize a mouse from 5 feet away. the cat in the house always fed generously by Mary would wither away without her sufferance. with so many public getting almost as much or more, on the dole, will they ever be able or willing to get back real job

P.312 memoires of a superfluous man "every day I divert myself with watching outside my window, a concourse (cont) https://tl.gd/n_1srmqd3

May

20

Often come across situation where we have alternate forecasts of an event. for example today, a forecasts based on the close on Friday is bearish but a forecasts base on the logoboal is bullish. how to combine? a good source with many answers is.

youtube.com/watch?v=SEZwkbliJr8… was asked to attend sage annual meeting to discuss why not to invest in sage stock. learned from the interview. His ping pong game is poor. he hits with stiff arm. he admires wealth of nation in addition to graham books his best friend is gates.

Main lesson left out pay attention to service expenses ,save them in every conceivable way, including dividends of companies bought, and rates paid by companies owned, be strident cheerleaders for higher rates for yourself and other wealthy. bridge is good game. breaking the four minute mile in stocks. when will someone do a study of the price performance of stocks breaking 1000 for first time, like Ethereum, tesla, I tried to do this 60 years ago but haven't seen proper study since. A file including all deletions is necessary.

A nice retrospective list https://walletinvestor.com/stock-forecast/stocks-over-1000-dollars 

couldn't get a reservation at Keenes over weekend as it ran out of space for social distancing . so we will call that one a draw . and note that Lobogola lives 

 

May

20

A foundation: we have witnessed a strake of 3 big declines in a row followed by a streak of 2 big rises. such has happened only 6 times in last 10 http://years.it could be a while to digest the muttons keenes.

boston.com/news/local-news/2021/05/13/i-hate-the-letter-s-this-college-essay-on-the-loss-of-a-parent-helped-a-bridgewater-teen-into-harvard-and-went-viral?p1=hp_featurebox… a key ..she operated a phone bank for Joe Biden 

May

20

As I am too decrepit and acerbic to drive myself I ordered an Uber for a quarter after.

I read in my favorite book "the time it never rained "that most ranchers prefer goat meet and mutton to lamb as it settles easier on the stomach.

May

8

Jack Cook writes:

Now I know why Mr. Softy owns so much farm land…

New research from Princeton University and Bloomberg confirms that renewables require 300 - 400 times more land than natural gas and nuclear plants

https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/finally-they-admit-renewables-are

KK Law writes

The answer is yes and no. It could be somewhat offset if homeowners would let solar cells be installed on their roof tops. Also, the calculation is likely based on legacy solar cell technologies with low optical to electric efficiency. I am not against renewables but I will read anything with a grain of salt.

Henry Gifford writes:

The vast majority of house roofs are not well suited to solar because they are not at the optimal angle (latitude angle from horizontal), not at the optimal azimuth (South), and shaded. This does not stop anyone from installing them on roofs of homes.

A more suitable location is roofs of large stores and warehouses, where there is no shade, and they can be oriented optimally, and where a large need for electricity is located immediately below.

Another benefit of locating them on commercial buildings is that they offset purchase of electricity at higher (commercial) prices.

As warehouse roofs are generally not utilized for anything else, the panels arguably occupy zero space, which the study authors presumably thought of.

The reason so many panels are installed on house is politics - taxpayers paying for someone’s social statement. In New York City the subsidies have advanced the industry to where they are routinely installed flat or vertical, in the shade, or facing North (Columbus Ave & 100st, for example). I have never met anyone who likes solar panels enough to pay for them with their own money.

Whenever I see wind turbines the land under them is being used for farming or grazing or etc. Saying they use a lot of land is like saying planes use up all the land they fly over.

Henry Gifford

Stefan Jovanovich writes

HG's comments are, as always, wonderfully exact.  Our new roof that will go up this week will not have solar panels because no one in NC is willing to pay us for the waste of money; in California they were happy to.

May

7

I'll try a little against the batters on base.

Meeting at Camp Kinderland revised the numbers to augment calls for infrastructure for pickle ball et al? 

Replay based on appeal of previous play upholds appeal that she didn't go.

Relief pitcher comes in two minutes.

Apr

8

Patrick Boyle  writes:

The article states: "The offer from Washington reflects Biden’s broader goal of ending what officials have described as a race-to-the-bottom on global taxation that has deprived governments of revenue needed to fund basic services and investments." 

I was surprised to see that governments are suffering this deprivation and wondered what percentage of GDP is collected by various governments worldwide.  It would appear that the US Government collects 27.1% of GDP as taxes while spending 38.1% of GDP.  Singapore seems to get by with 14.1% of GDP in taxes.

Here is the full list on wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio

Stefan Jovanovich  writes

As a economic denominator GDP has always troubled me since it pretends that there is an absolute equivalence between the Department of Education's paying for further studies of whole word instruction and parents' struggles to show their children that understanding the American language depends on recognizing the sounds of syllables and using the alphabet to write and read the notations of those sounds.  

In this particular example, the fiction of GDP is even worse: what the Federal Government spends on the 21st century's answer to phrenology counts as output because it is paid for in dollars.  What the parents do gets no accounting at all.

Assessing American public spending right now is tricky because this is the first time in our history as a nation that we have done what William James wanted and found a moral equivalence of war without the spending on arms and destruction.  There have been no net deaths in Trump's war against Covid; measured against the mortality rates for an average flu year, the casualty rate has been negative.  Instead of incurring debt to build ships, planes and other military assets that will be pure waste, that, unlike the capital equipment used in the "private" sector will have no residual value other than as scrap, this Federal war has spent it's money on direct transfers to people's bank accounts,  raises for hospital employees, and what has been effectively a continuation of the Census' part-time employment for official counting.  

There has been no wartime inflation because the largest part of the "spending" has been no spending at all but simply a non-recourse loan from the government to taxpayers that they have chosen to save.  

This really is different this time.

 

Patrick Boyle  writes:

I frequently see an argument from the left where any tax reduction is described as a government giveaway to the rich.  It is based on the idea that 100% of income belongs to the government and if you get to keep any at all is a gift.

It is one thing when a government increases taxes for their own benefit, but I don't think I can think of another example of a government encouraging other nations to tax its companies.  In fact trade wars are often fought over issues like this.  It is hard to view such a push from the new administration as anything other than a hatred of wealth generation.

Stefan Jovanovich  writes

f PB could offer a specific example of a "trade war" that became an actual war - one where the politicians spend money without limit and have their armies and navies work to kill people, it would help.  I looked through the list of conflicts for the past four centuries and I could not find one that was fought over tax rates and currency exchange terms.  As for how much money the U.S. government can tax, there is no limit.  The Constitution gave Congress total authority with the only limit being that direct taxes had to be apportioned by population among the states.   That was eliminated by the 16th amendment.

Apr

7

Practical booklet for children and parents - perhaps even some traders?
From Ray Gottlieb (retired eye doctor) - on learning, memory, imagination, attention, vision using the trampoline…..
As Goethe once said.   Theory is all grey, whereas life (and nature) is so colorful.
So are mkts and birds etc we would say..

Apr

5

Vix Part 2

April 5, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Michael Cook writes:

I know we tend to go into a stock market bullish period next week but I just got a Vix buy signal which generates from recent price behaviour of Vix index. Historically if it is going to work, (it doesn't always of course, what does?) it tends to start the move within a couple of bars.

Anonymous  writes

what is the green line? Also what is the time frame on each candle is it in the next day or 2 or next week or next month?

Michael Cook writes:

Daily bars, dark green signals utilize a 44 bar look back (so 2 months), light green are a 22 bar look back. 

Anoymous writes:

Ok what does the green signal line mean. Is it an indicator if so what. How are you supposed to be reading it pls.

Michael Cook writes:

This came about from [what I thought of as] a nice little bit of research by Andrew Thrasher who won the 2017 Charles Dow Award for his paper forecasting a volatility tsunami. https://cmtassociation.org/association/awards/charles-h-dow-award/

The two indicators are just two ways I mapped of looking at the dispersion of Vix.

In response to Gary's point, it isnt really that brave. It gets 1/4% to 1/2% of risk and I always have the expectation that at least half trades hit max loss or, if long options, expire at nil anyway!

Apr

5

Vix

April 5, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Anonymous writes:

Do you mind sharing what's needed to be read inferred in your svxy chart  for beginners.

Gary Phillips writes

nothing particularly esoteric here, other than the dotted yellow line is a level that has shown support in the past, and old support may become new resistance. in terms of constructal law it is an area that has evolved over time to allow greater access to the currents that flow through it.

Duncan Coker writes:

Feb of 2018 was quite a move for SVXY, down 90%.  SVXY is really a proxy for selling the term structure of VIX which is almost always in contango.(ie sell the distance month, cover after a month, rinse and repeat).  Except when the spot and front month explode upward and go into backwardation.  I did a study a while back showing backwardation of futures term structure is very bullish for SP500, but not that many trades.

Mar

31

Victor Niederhoffer  writes:

How many of the great inventions were made for profit  rather than government sponsored or the common good.    

Peter writes:

If war is government sponsored great inventions (in some cases for profit as well) - I believe you will cover most of the great advances in medicine, aerospace, computers, etc…add the Cold War space race and most of the items in my kitchen can be added to the invention list.

Stefan Jovanovich writes:

The grand achievement of the American integrated freight system - now the world's logistical model - was almost entirely a product of the mass stupidity we call the Civil War.

James Lackey writes:

Mr Stephan,

You've got to admit that pure speculation in rail paper traded in NYC was important.

Victor Niederhoffer  writes:

lets do some more justice to the influence of profits making on invention. I've only listed the ones where great industries were formed and there were patent fights. Newcomen– steam engine, John kay– flying shuttle,  Hargreaves– spinning jenny, James watt steam engine, Cartwright –power loom, Whitney– cotton gin and interchangeable parts, Trevithick road steam locomotive, Stephenson–railways. Isambard Kingdom Brunel - revolvers, colt, brunel steam ship, singer, home sewing machine, Bessemer steel processing, more telegraph, Edison lightbulb Benz internal combustion engine.

Mar

30

Maybe that resonates w you, too,
Savvy traders are good in paying attention how they spend their attention on, vs inexperienced traders (same most ordinary folks) who often get bamboozled by the media, the drama outside and so on.
In the movie Meriln,  the protagonist kept chasing the tail of Queen Mab - but eventually he realized that Queen Mab didn't have the power she proclaimed.    Right now, the wokes are a bit like emotional vampires- sorry for lack of better words- looking four pps attention and the joke is always on us - in trading and life.

Mar

28

Please consider for the SpecList

John Ridpath (1935 – March 23, 2021)

John Ridpath taught at York University in Toronto.

Like his close friend Allan Gotthelf and like George Reisman, John was reviled by his colleagues for his philosophical convictions but was over and over again voted as best teacher.

Like Alan Gotthelf and George Reisman, John was able to introduce three or four concepts in a lecture and students would come away with an understanding so clear that they would think them completely obvious.

John was formally a member of the Economics Department at York and formally taught Intellectual History but what he really taught was that a very few intellectually active, philosophically consistent people could change the course of history. His specialty was the amazing coincidence of a small group of men who created the philosophically consistent constitution of the United States, the only constitution ever that recognizes, and defends, the right of each person to have the freedom to better his or her own life. His Canadian(!) students loved it. I had the great good fortune of an open invitation to attend classes led by John during the ugly early 1970’s and, whenever I could escape work, I would go. It was like having the gas tank refilled.

Like the best of the self-interested, he was warm and generous to the point of shaking one’s head: How could someone be so much this way? For me, he was a wonderful mentor.

Mar

28

Hands

March 28, 2021 | Leave a Comment

There must be something about hands and brain - and common sense. and well-being.
most of my male friends who also work w their hands (e.g wood work or so, when they otherwise are traders) seem to have better grasp of simple things now….the hands stand for humanity as well. etc.
the wokes love to be in their head…a lot…in a virtual world.

Mar

27

Austin Lackey  writes:

Hey Specs,

Does anyone have any experience with the idea of tokenizing fungible assets/commodities? Idea being that you have a lot tracked asset that has the ability to be used in production and/or traded. It may trade hands 1,000 times before it's used, or used by the first buyer. The token coordinates with an exact lot in a warehouse or vault, and would be "burnt" if the owner ever took physical delivery. Has anyone seen (or worked with) anything similar to this, and what pitfalls do you see? I've seen JPMorgan is doing something similar with gold on their platform Quorum.

Laurel Kenner writes:

The chair's son is an expert in this subject. 

Mar

27

Pressure

March 27, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Victor Niederhoffer  writes:

What can the physics of pressure tell us about markets.  when a large accumulation of sel orders is directed at one point the force /area is great as it is in a triple top or double top or break thru the sogi/ what other elementary physical principles apply to markets. 

Zubin Al Genubi writes:

I can venture to say the idea of Gravity does NOT work in markets. Looking at a chart one gets the illusion of height or that gravity might effect prices but it is an illusion and a dangerous misleading illusion.

Peter DeBaz writes:

I'm not a physicist, so I'm sure that any understanding I have of physics would make a pro scoff.  Financial "momentum" could be an expression of newton's first law.  VN's original idea could be a restatement of f=ma, newton's second.  And finally, "value" trading could be a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, which is why, one could argue, that it never worked (lol). 

Andrew Aiken writes:

Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing formula is a direct restatement of the heat (diffusion) equation:

ut − ∆u = f(x, t)

and later refinements such as Heston, which allows for pricing “jumps”, are extensions of this equation with additional conditions.

(I prefer to price options in a way that doesn’t underprice tail risk)

Mar

11

youtube.com/watch?v=jfYHXL4p8GA… the more stimulus bill. the more you lose in 2020 ,the more I pay.

Find out about the romantic life of the 3 greatest composers of the 19th century.

"Ex food and energy" 1.4% for hermits. Speaking of hermits a helpful hint from Forgotten Books
 Forgotten Books https://forgottenbooks.com/en may be the answer to the rest of your free time from the distant past. It is online or paper books from 1920 or prior to the 1. everything's  groovy. perhaps a Barron Coleman day, everything is woke.

Adding insult to injury Roger Clemens
12 OF 16
Scooping up a piece of Piazza's shattered bat, Clemens tossed it in the direction of the former catcher, making it look like he was intentionally trying to hurt the guy—which was probably his plan. 

Beethoven trained a telescope on school so he could be sure that Karl towed the mark and that the school treated him well. Have often followed on those footsteps to make sure my kids were being treated well by their school. before that my father did the same for me " The principal always said to me " you should know better your father is a cop" the principal of my high school tried with all his mte to get me not admitted to Harvard. he ran a competitive tutoring service.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jfYHXL4p8GA… the more stimulus bill. the more you lose in 2020 ,the more I pay.

Mar

2

Book Recco

March 2, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Gary Boddicker  writes:

I recently picked up https://www.amazon.com/Cattle-Kingdom-Hidden-History-Cowboy/dp/0544369963 on a recommendation from Ryan Holiday’s excellent reading newsletter: https://ryanholiday.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcd3642d86121fbcaa9914228&id=03b4ecb2d5&e=879beeec35 

Panoramic history of what could be America’s first nationwide industry with entrepreneurs and risk takers for days: the decimation of the buffalo, cow town stock yard developments,  “assembly line” manufacturing predating Mr.Ford and his automobiles, refrigerated rail cars, “dead meat” exports to Europe, Delmonico’s, a great big commodity speculative bubble fueled in part by global investors in the US industry…plus the real skinny on life as a cowboy, cattle drive misery, gunfights (or the lack thereof)… very well written, engaging tale, with characters galore. I’m halfway through and it’s not easily put down. Highly recommend. 

Stefan Jovanovich writes:

If GB's review were on Amazon, it would join many others.  Mine would be tucked away at the bottom and would probably be rejected for being unkind to authors …..

Knowlton has written a lazy book.  To think that the beef ranching, stockyard and wholesale butchering trades were "America’s first nationwide industry" you have to know less than nothing about American history.  Mr. Swift Cowboys and cattle drives were a minor adjunct to a secondary business for the railroads.  They disappeared as soon as the spur lines were built out.  There is also some pure crap: "A direct link connects vigilante justice on the open range and U.S. involvement in Vietnam." I recommend a few minutes reading about the SRL as an emetic.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_Refrigerator_Line

 

Gary Boddicker  writes:

Stephan- in fairness to the “lazy” book, there is a good discussion of the SRL development you highlight including Swift’s fight with the rail lines, who preferred perpetuating the more lucrative live cattle shipping they had been enjoying, and his ultimate victory. The “emetic” was included. In fact, the major railroad’s market hold had to be “overcome” at a couple junctures in the book…usually by utilizing smaller competitors. 
The discussion of Swift’s further battle to get “refrigerated meat” accepted by East Coast butchers and consumers reminded me of my formative years when my father was fighting a similar war to get IBP’s innovative “boxed beef” accepted in the same protected, unionized,”mobbed up,” markets:  
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/ibp-inc
As to “nationwide,” That wasn’t the author’s claim, but my hyperbole. It’s possible I spent too many Saturday mornings in Denison packing houses, Sioux City stockyards “smells like money”, and Plainview feedlots and I was willing to give “Beef” an outsized designation having stumbled across this history. Still have a little romance in my heart for that tough industry, its people, and the western geography. ;) Also love a good steak. 
Vietnam? No clue. Haven’t read that yet.  Agree that smells like BS more than napalm smells like victory. Does he mention Robert Duvall’s hat and the Air Cav?
 

Stefan Jovanovich  writes:

Thx, GB.  I am being unfair.  And I have no good excuse.  The author's first book about the Florida land rush bugged me because the author made a reach to compare that episode with the 2008/9 bubble without regard to their relative magnitudes.  (If any real estate bust in the 1920s was comparable, it was Chicago's).  So, reading your comments, I thought "here we go again".  Flipping through electronic pages and using my own version of the Hitler test (bad thinking always gets to some mention of the Fuhrer or Viet-Nam) is not reading or thinking or even vigilante literary justice.  Time once again to wash out my smart aleck mouth with a mea culpa
 
 

Gary Boddicker  writes:

No worries Stefan, always enjoy your perspective…also, based on past posts,  I am quite certain you’ve forgotten more of American History than I’ve ever known. I hope to continue to learn from you

Mar

2

If ones decomposes the driver of value or growth what will find is that it is all about price. the fundamentals change very slow and by small amounts. here is a good academic paper that analyzes this link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2083166

In other words, value was driven mainly by long-term (>5years) price mean-reversion. the reason for the underperformance over the last decade(s) is that long-term price reversals have not worked. 
this paper as well https://www.q-group.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Linnainmaa-Dissecting-Factors.pdf 

Feb

28

Fed Model

February 28, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Looking at the 10year bond rates I see a roughly 1.5% yield and another 0.9% from rolling down the yield curve. Total carry ~2.4%

If you adjust that to match equity volatility you get multiplier of 2. So on vol/risk/duration adjusted basis bonds have 4.8% yield
Looking at the sp500 fwd earnings yield I see it stands at 4.5%
Bonds have become again an equity competitor
Perhaps this is the start of the move of tectonic plates

Feb

15

Three Point

February 15, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Victor Niederhoffer writes:

Phil Musia in the post has an article about  how the three point shot which has gone up to 80 per game from 20 years ago is ruining the basketball game.  What aspects of markets have changed for the worse in the last 20 years? 

Penny Brown writes:

What's worse?  The abandonment of the up tick rule for shoring.

Feb

11

Alex Castaldo writes:

what does dr burry mean by his btc mining tweet today

(20) Cassandra on Twitter: "70% of $BTC is mined in sanctioned countries, China, Iran, Russia. Crypto is in a race - add enough reputable agents of commerce to counter and overcome the inevitable coordinated actions of the ECB/BoJ/Fed/IMF/WorldBank-level powers-that-be to crush it. https://t.co/glYdmeTJ4g." / Twitter

70% of $BTC is mined in sanctioned countries, China, Iran, Russia. Crypto is in a race - add enough reputable agents of commerce to counter and overcome the inevitable coordinated actions of the ECB/BoJ/Fed/IMF/WorldBank-level powers-that-be to crush it. 

Pete Earle writes:

He's saying that BTC needs to grow its network and become a more compelling medium of exchange in order to survive the likely outcome of the governments and monetary authorities in China and Russia (Iran?) putting severe criminal penalties on its mining and usage. Meh. 

Does not follow that if mining were quashed in those countries other miners elsewhere wouldn't fill the gap, but it would be a bumpy ride and the price would almost definitely suffer. (There's also the remote chance that in the tumult that would follow miners going offline there could be a 51% attack.) But it strikes me that when an illicit enterprise becomes big enough (gambling, marijuana, etc.) governments would rather become privileged providers and gatekeepers than suppressors. 

Jayson Pifer writes:

Burry seems to be missing that cheap electricity wins.  It's not a matter of simply adding reputable agents when they will not be able to scale to compete with Chinese miners.  Not to mention that those sanctioned countries are incentivized to mine heavily and therefore keep the security of the network high.  I don't really see this changing.

I'm curious what sort of coordinated actions he supposes will be taken by the power-that-be.  For the foreseeable future it appears to be concurrent debasement of currencies to the benefit of cryptos.

I forget who on the list was running a mining operation, the information shared was valuable.  Perhaps we could get some recent insight.

Jan

30

Niches

January 30, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Zubin Al writes: 

At a surf break, the waves tend to focus and break in a small area ideal for taking off in a surfboard.  In a normal surf line up where the surfers wait for waves people crowd up, and informally queue up for their turn at the wave. However, 20% of the surfers usually get 80% of the waves.  These are the top feeders.  

I've learned how to foil surf on hydrofoils that fly above the water.  The take off spot is in a different spot that where the board surfers drop in, and the high speed and efficiency of the foil allow riding in places where the board riders don't and can't ride.  I can also ride breaks and wave conditions where board riders cannot and don't want to ride.  After close to 60 years surfing, its opened up a whole new world of surfing for me.  Due to the extreme difficulty learning to foil, and the very high expense of the equipment, there are only a handful of foil surfers around.  We reap uncrowded waves and   thrilling high speed rides flying above the water.  

In the ecology of the market, there are many niches.  Props to the GME traders who found a new niche.  In the law of changing cycles,though, the top feeders and brokers move to protect their niche in the greater picture of the market. 

The question is whether the de leveraging and higher margins and deposits for brokers in that niche will spread and affect the general market bringing it down a notch.

One theory I've had is that big waves correlate with high volatility.  Its pure superstition.  Under my theory, wive big waves down this weekend and with big waves possible Wednesday and Thursday market vol will be up midweek.  This is pure mumbo, never tested and just for fun.

 

Jeff Watsurf writes: 

I started foil surfing a few years ago, using a kite. A total game changer in my humble opinion.

Jan

22

Arc Sine Law

January 22, 2021 | Leave a Comment

50's gravitational effect in  effect today, together with the tendency toward new highs to continue.  Hard to believe but that  is what creates the wall of worry bull markets climb.

Jan

22

Learn

January 22, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Victor Niederhoffer  writes:

What can we learn and what insights do the football  games and quan regularities has to teach us about markets. I often feel that the 50 years zone is  transition to likely touchdown as is the 80 to 100 level the redone where  it is likely to go to 100.

Eric Lindell   writes:

I've found that general knowledge of shenanigans can be helpful. Consider deflategate, where Tom Brady/Patriots were accused of using deflated footballs.

Careful review of highlight reel shows intentionally missed passes by the Colts, which even the announcer noticed.

Deflated footballs were used as a minor cheating scandal to conceal a much more serious one. They were also used to create the illusion that the Colts were resisting Patriots' attempt to cheat.

It was partly because Brady and concomitant shenanigans moved to the Buccaneers that I predicted a good season for them. I still do.

Jan

18

Jeffrey Watson  writes:

I wonder if specs as children would eat the marshmallow now or wait the 15 minutes and get another one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jakAtI0Zo

Stefan Jovanovich  writes:

The fraud in social science is that its practitioners almost always end up being Platonists.  Instead of doing what Darwin and others did - collecting data in massive quantities and then using mathematics to find the probabilities, they define an idea - delayed gratification - and then work at finding the evidence that proves that the idea exists.  The law - the worst of all modern social sciences - does this automatically.  If you repeated the marshmallow experiment a hundred times, you would get the beginnings of understanding.  You might discover that the issue with the child who does not wait on the first trial is trust of strangers, that, after seeing that waiting does get you a second one, he is happy to wait as long as required.  If you change the reward structure so it is competitive - the one who waits longer gets 2, you would see yet another result.  The length of the finches' beaks is a statistical response to reality, not a measure of any particular bird's desire for instant or delayed gratification.

To answer Watsurf's question, for marshmallows I could wait forever - hate the things and always have.  For black licorice, I would have stolen the other kids before he had a chance to think.

Anna K writes: 

Stefan, very good points about all the issues with the test, but do you really think that “delayed vs instant gratification” doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter? 

Stefan Jovanovich  writes:

To give AK's questions a binary answer, No and No.  Delayed gratification is another categorical description that pretends human beings have innate behavioral qualities that can be quantitied, will be stable over time, and have predictive value.  But, the only measure that more than a century of experimental  data has shown to have a correlation with future behavior is the one that makes no effort to dissect people's minds but takes them completely as a whole - IQ.  And that, of course, is the very measure that has become illegal because it can foretell what individuals can and will do.

Penny Brown writes: 

Towards that end, De Blasio has decided to end testing to determine which students receive a place in schools for the gifted and talented.

No one is allowed to be superior in his world.  He has foster the dumbing down of education because having superior achievers is not equal.

Henceforth admission to the schools for  gifted students will just be determined by a lottery.

Jan

12

Galton on Politics

January 12, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Victor Niederhoffer  writes: 

Why a slight switch in sentiment can cause a landslide of change.  I'll
get the exact quote somewhat  later but this is good  concerning the
tendency of oxen and human to have a preference for slavery

Penny Brown writes: 

A quote from Maxim du Camp - friend of Flaubert: "Revolution is always
the same: initiated by simpletons, helped along by fools, pushed through
by rogues and then taken over by the opportunists who do quite well."

Jan

12

Zubin Al writes: 

Recently at a restaurant at lunch, two blue collar guys, one older, one
younger guy with a beard, both  in electricians uniforms sit down and  I
overhear the young guy explaining to the older guy about buying stocks,
and how if they double how much money he can make.  He says he doesn't
care how much it goes down, and that he will hold on.  The conversation
moves to Bitcoin, and the younger guy doesn't quite understand how it
works but that it keeps going up. To myself I'm thinking, "hmmm".  I
remember in late 1999 walking into the broker's office where I see a
young woman who I remember waiting tables there buying stocks.  I recall
taxi drivers during that same period talking stocks as conversation in
the cabs.

I wonder, is it different this time?
 

Dr Gangineni Dhananjhay writes: 

I have also got a similar experience in India. Near the brokerage
company where I regularly go to trade, I visit a Coffee stall. The
person running the coffee shop started giving stock advice. Which stocks
to buy and sell and general market opinion. I got afraid. Of course
this is an anecdotal evidence. I am seeing more of my relatives and
family members giving me stock advice. Time to be cautious ??

Jack Cook writes: 

For me, the Spring of 2001 'Aha Mr. Livermore, this is the top?  My
Masseuse was working on my lats and telling tales of retiring on all the
Cisco stock he had.

He is still my Masseuse.

Best in 2021

Heather

TikTok and Discord Are the New Wall Street Trading DesksCaitlin McCabe, Gunjan Banerji and Mischa Frankl-Duval-WSJ. A
new army of social media-enabled day traders is helping push stocks to
records and turning companies into market sensations. As trading by
individual investors boomed during the coronavirus pandemic, so has the
popularity of online communities where they gather. Platforms including
TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook and messaging
platform Discord have become the new Wall Street trading desks.
Individual investors gather to talk about hot stocks like Tesla Inc.,
boast of gains and commiserate about losses. These investors do more
than just talk, though. They piggyback on each others' ideas and trades,
helping fuel the momentum that has propelled some companies to
triple-digit or bigger gains in 2020.on.wsj.com/3bxmPHI

Dec

28

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

Somewhere in digital maw is an earlier email of mine to the List with a copy of the wonderful cartoon that appeared recently in France.  It has the 3 wise men visiting Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus and the animals in the manger.  Each wise man is carrying a syringe.  The caption reads (apologies for my hopelessly bad non-existent French): "We'll try it first on the donkey and then see what happens."  The expression on the donkey's face is priceless.

As a perfect antidote to the varieties of idiocy out there, I recommend Brigitte Engerer's extraordinary performance of Chopin's Nocturnes.  She was perfection and someone who knew herself.

"I need the transparency of the French piano — and, more important, the rationality of French philosophy. But I needed some of the Russian craziness in my playing. I still do."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Engerer

 Adam Grimes writes: 

I've always loved her interpretation of the Nocturnes. If memory serves, she had a very impressive recording of the Mussorgsky Pictures, too. 

If you want to explore some more esoteric Chopin, see if you can find the Mazurkas as recorded by Andrzej Wasowski. If you know these pieces, you'll find his ideas challenging, to put it kindly… but there's a very good chance he's on the right track. (Basically, the beats tend to be unequal, leaning toward the uneven meters we find later in Bartok and others… it certainly makes sense that a Polish folk dance might have had (should probably read "very likely did have") some of the same characteristics that we associate with Romanian and Bulgarian folk music.)  

I'm not sure if you can find his recordings on YouTube, but it's worth tracking down a CD if you have to.

Dec

3

December 3, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Laurence Glazier writes: 

In Sci Fi the Peter Hamilton trilogies and Adrian Tchaikovsky's tales.

But my main find in 2020 is the app Notion - notion.so - and among other uses for it I have been applying Tiago Forte's Second Brain method for storing favourite snippets for future access. If anything I find more wisdom in fiction than non-fiction. in a sense that makes it truer.

James Goldcamp  writes: 

Hi Laurence - Can you expand on how you use this app and Second Brain method.  I've actually been contemplating some kind of note app particularly for the purpose of putting excerpts and ideas from things I read or thoughts I have more at my fingertips. I've willfully resisted such technology to this point but think something along these lines might be useful

Leo Jao writes: 

Just checked a bit on Notion, can't yet recommend about its advantages, but have noticed major drawbacks of a note taking software.  In the past years, I have tried and used quite a few of them.  Of course in this age, a key feature is being able to sync notes across devices.  The big names include Evernote, OneNote, Keep, in addition to other lesser known one's.  One issue is at some point in time, one gets concerned about privacy and security of the contents, as with these sync'able platforms, contents are all stored in their servers.  For this or other reasons, one wants to switch to other platforms at some point.  There then is a key issue: one can't easily take the contents away!  Notion has these two issues.  I see that it can export a single note, but misses a feature of exporting all notes.

For the past year, I settled on an open source software called Joplin.  For syncing, it provides various ways without having to use a public server.  Notes can be easily exported.

 

Michael Chuprin writes: 

Victor's contribution to this thread:
In no specific order:
1.The Psychology of Speculation: The Human Element in Stock Market Transactions
2.Fourteen Methods of Operating in the Stock Market
3.The Mad Dog 100: The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time
4.Wealth, War and Wisdom
5.The West of the Imagination
6.Darwin
7.Regression Analysis and Linear Models: Concepts, Applications, and Implementation
8.Man on Earth: A Celebration of Mankind: Portraits of Human Culture in a Multitude of Environments
9.Voices of the French Revolution
10.The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997
11.Lone Star Rising: The Texas Rangers Trilogy

Dec

1

New High for BTC

December 1, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Andrew Aiken writes: 

BTC made a new ATH this morning, nominally at least.

I expect a strong breakthrough move, although such a move may take a few days.

The rally from March has not been accompanied by much notice from retail financial media.

Instead, there has been significant adoption by traditional money managers (Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, etc) and corporate treasuries (e.g. Microstrategy).

For lower-risk exposure to crypto, I suggest taking a look at Galaxy Digital Holdings (ADR: BRPHF), a crypto-focused asset management firm with additional lines of business in prime brokerage, market-making, and investment banking in the space. 

At current BTC and ETH prices, it trades at an 8% discount to tangible book value (not AUM).

The firm holds 16,651 BTC ($327M) in its corporate treasury alone.

https://bitcointreasuries.org/

Dendi Suhubdy writes: 

Fyi I’m building a crypto derivatives exchange test it out here https://testnet.bitwyre.com. Will be live on https://bitwyre.com on new years eve

Nov

23

Leo Jia writes: 

Underspecification.  Observed effects can have many possible causes.  So when you have say 50 models that analyze the causes from various prospectives, and all worked well in tests, but in the real world on a specific case, they present different results, and you are faced with uncertainty as to which one to take.  This also relates to our mind and life experiences, doesn't it?  In life, one has learned how to do all this and all that, but when faced with a situation, one struggles on what approach to take.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/18/1012234/training-machine-learning-broken-real-world-heath-nlp-computer-vision/

Dendi Suhubdy writes: 

It’s not fundamentally flawed at all. I’ve been working with a Turing award winner in deep learning since 2016 and built multiple startups in the field of deep learning.

I can say it relies on the backpropagation algorithm, which means it needs to have the function (linear or non-linear, nonlinear for deep neural networks) to be differentiable (what we call the backward pass). When we do inference (or the foward pass) it’s just simply matrix multiplication of (weights * prev_input) + bias.

Now to achieve a better understanding of how our world works, we need to have to learn from few-shots, or zero-shots. Also we need to be able to quickly learn from a smaller sample size. This problem is hard and I believe we (the deep learning people) are working on it.

Larry W writes: 

I have spent a lot of money developing AI trading strategies and so far…none of them are better—or even close —to man-made strategies

Nov

23

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-scientists-say-they-found-a-way-to-reverse-the-human-aging-process-649798

Nov

19

US CPI 0.00%

November 19, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Zacek  writes: 

Question for all the smart people here. Why is the CPI 0% in the USA if whatever I buy here in AZ, I pay considerably more compared to 9 months ago (end Feb)?

What is it I am missing? What did go cheap sooo much to compensate the CPI composition for all this:

Organic Eggs +50%

Coca Cola tins/bottles +20-30%

Toilet paper +30-50%

Full tank of gas +20%

Long term apartment rent +15-20%

Property prices +30%

Construction Labor +25%

Average Hollywood movie shoot/location per day +75%

Firearms +25-30%

Ammo +150%

Average doctor bill +xxx%

Rudolf Hauser writes: 

One problem is the unchanged market basket at a time when people’s buying habits have changed. So one sees declines in such things as airline prices because fewer people are flying but the weight that receives in the calculation has not changed. Meanwhile, prices of many items in demand are rising.

Nov

9

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

Report on what seems to avalla and me likek pfizer held bak their results.  was   it planned to be after election or did they just report it  late. eitherway, its very suspicious and  certainly affected the electio

K. K. Law writes: 

Need to dig into it to find the truth. It is entirely possible the MSM plus many tech companies including big pharmas are behind influencing the election to make sure Trump lose. As much as the left "wishes" to put the election behind, this is far from being done. It is not until the Supreme Court has made the final decision after reviewing all the submitted evidences and hearing sworn testimonies. I saw the words, "Hear, Hear." Exactly, let us hear what the Supreme Court has to decide and say. The election and the trades are interrelated. There are chances one may have to switch back to "Biden lose, Trump win" trades. We shall see.

Jordan Neuman writes: 

The SuJordan Neumanpreme Court will probably not take the cases.  

Gus Glads writes: 

Pfizer made its timeline very clear from the beginning. Was transparent from the start. The company outlined its process and gave a clear roadmap in October. Read below. Additionally, Pfizer from the beginning has never been part of Operation Warp Speed and has not taken any govt money for R&D.

https://www.pfizer.com/news/hot-topics/an_open_letter_from_pfizer_chairman_and_ceo_albert_bourla?linkId=102134275

As for the Supreme Court. Trump and his “legal” team was 0-10 entering today in courts across America  since Election Day as it relates to cases of election fraud and this morning his team’s most recent attempt in Lansing, Michigan Cout of Appeals was rejected by Judge Cynthia Stephens with the following language: “I regret to inform you that your submission is defective.”  The reason being the submission was missing 4 key elements of evidence and support that they claimed to possess.

Nov

6

Alex Forshaw writes: 

1. Is it possible to determine what % of dead people (alt'y, what % of people over 110 years old) voted for Biden over Trump, where they live, and when they last voted? AFAICT, so far, the dead demo is 100 percent for Biden, and turnout was up at least 100 percent over 2016/2012. This was a devastating rebuke to 160 years of shameless GOP voter suppression.

2. More dead voters have voted for Biden than have shown up for all of Biden's campaign rallies, combined. Outstanding GOTV by the Biden campaign here, especially considering that they had no GOTV for most, if not all, other demos.

3.  Dead Lives Matter! Just from sampling social media, dead voters are clearly the fastest-growing demographic in the United States, and Biden's outreach to this underserved minority was amazing. What policies & voter outreach should GOP'ers consider in order to compete for this underserved demographic?

K.K. Law writes: 

If there is a way to quantify voter frauds such as dead people's votes, illegal people's votes and people casting votes multiple times and destroying GOP votes, that would be great. I am sure all these happen but just don't know the magnitude.

Oct

26

K. K. Law writes: 

Tony Bobulinski held presser claiming Joe Biden knew about Hunter's business deals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiiSq7toqlQ

Penny Brown writes: 

Why didn't this come out sooner?  Wouldn't it have been more effective to drop the bombshell before so many votes were turned in?

Or was it purposively held back to last minute so there were be no time to refute?

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

The answer is that the smart Republicans in AZ, FL, PA and elsewhere learned from 2018.  They know that you have to let the Democrats vote first so that they can't figure out how many "extra" votes they will need to find on Election Day to overtake the Republicans' "lead".  When the Republicans are behind, there is no way for the Democrats to make that calculation.  Remember, kids, that successful voter fraud is a two-step trade: first, you need the Registrations, then you need the ballots.  Even in Philadelphia you can't these days vote more people than you already have on the voter rolls.  (Oh, for the good old days.)

Oct

23

Bosch

October 23, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Zubin Al Genubi writes: 

Murakami writes,"convenient approximations bring you closest to comprehending the true nature of things.

Laurel Kenner writes: 

 Also:  Walter Mosley's two series of noir set in LA and NYC, with heroes East Rawlings and Leonid McGill.  Inherent Vice and the Crying of Lot 49, by the paranoid master Thomas Pynchon 

and Raymond Chandler for the ultimate portrait of prewar LA. 

Peter Saint-Andre  writes: 

My wife, who is a big fan of the Bosch series, also recommends the Joe

Gary Boddicker  writes: 

I’ll second the C.J. Box recco, but I’m biased. Chuck was my next door dorm neighbor many years ago at Denver U and a friend. He would disappear into his room (even in the midst of a party) and we’d hear the typewriter banging for hours as we waited in anticipation…out would come a double-spaced, creative, plotted, story…usually things had “gone Western” and the bad guys met a very satisfying end. 

He is a wonderful example of someone who always knew what he loved to do, kept working at it until he got a break, and is now among the best in his field. He’s been banging out one or two a year for many years now and you won’t be bored. Especially appealing to those who appreciate the modern West, it’s people, the outdoors, and a good story. 

Oct

20

Larry W  writes: 

Who wants to watch a game when you know it will be a lopsided victory?

Only die-hards. If you have been told by the MSM your guy, who you are only luke-warm about to begin with, is 10 points up….no need to go vote.

MSM shoots themselves in the foot.!

Gus Glads  writes: 

Larry– I see your point and, to some extent, that explains 2016. 

But it's a different kind of "game" this time around. This isn't about voting for "your guy" to win. It's about voting down the other "guy" because you'll do whatever it takes to ensure that he loses. And the bigger the loss on the scoreboard the better. A much different calculus, which will lead to much different behavior this time around.

Larry W  writes: 

Disagree turn out is based on enthusiasm not hate—look at RR and BObam turn outs as an example  hate/revenge, surveys say, do not turn out voters

Gus Glads  writes: 

I agree Larry but you’re talking about normal times, with normal candidates 

No precedent for what he’s created

Record #s will be recorded this election 

He has dug his own hole and it’s deep

Too many think he has some magic dust that he’s sprinkling — ain’t no magic in that dust my friends.

Oct

19

Election Thoughts

October 19, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Peter Ringel  writes: 

love all of these relative strength thoughts / models.

The market is much stronger than the seasonal pattern

Thus the next seasonal low should springboard a better than usual rally

If trump wins expect larger rally than if biden carries the day (better rallies when party stays in power, thanks JH)

That’s my strategy

I don't known what drove this rally, but I assume election uncertainty is bearish. Since the mkt is not - we have a monster driver in here.

There's a humongous fungus amungus!

 … disprove my fear of a  media/swamp

Wait ! there is any doubt left ? :)

K. K. Law  writes: 

Don't know for sure, but the recent bull trend could correlate with the potential Trump November win. Will see if it will take out the Aug/Sept highs. If it forms a double top and reverses, that would be a different story.

Oct

13

SPEC-LIST

October 13, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Zubin Al Genubi  writes: 

It looks like there are sharp steep drops and no other chance to buy, then an unrelenting drive upwards.  The election discussion, I think, is related and why SJ's call last election was important. The problem, for me,  is staying up all night.

Arthur Khaldarov  writes: 

There were other guys that predicted the opposite of SJ's call and right now we would've been quoting them.

…(obviously, if their prediction came true).

This list can tackle mini problems and become a great source of knowledge. Ideas are dime a dozen, but here we can analyze 3 a week and maybe have some home runs.

Ralph Vince writes: 

There is nothing to prevent others from contributing ideas here, market, electoral, whatever, and the political ones as well. 

there is not a limited number of messages per day or a limited number of topics.

There is however a limited number of people on this list, and only a subset who contribute. This argument rings of being dissatisfied that those who are contributing aren't being interesting enough. Those who have contacted you off list and complained about the electoral discussion have been welcome at any time to contribute all sorts of diverse topics here in addition to whatever is being discussed at the moment.

Oct

1

Fact of the Week

October 1, 2020 | Leave a Comment

George Zachar writes: 

The Manhattan Project guys were all (Jewish) immigrants too. Richard Feynman was a native New Yorker, who grew up in the Rockaways.

Stefan Jovanovich  writes: 

Apologies for not including Feynman; my explanation is that he was a "junior" scientist.  The complete list of scientists and engineers who worked on the thing runs into the thousands.

Dendi Suhubdy writes: 

I’m worried that the Chinese government would win this artificial intelligence cold war to be honest. There are a lot of people who just devote their lives in China to annotate labels and also to code deep learning code in C++.

In Montreal there are probably 400 of us max. And I haven’t seen a precision guided missile using deep learning and simuated reinforcement learning whatsoever. You can simulate multiple times in a simulator that a missile can hit a target, given enough time and computational resources. You then transfer the learning e.g weights from that to the real missile and calibrate.

That would help the missile be guided by literally only a 180 wide angle camera even if it looses GPS capabilities.

The US isn’t innovating rapid enough. Never seen that in a SBIR announcement.

Sep

30

A hypotthesis

September 30, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

If  a devil were to cast a spell and  alll  wealthy from specualting and investing would be confiscated, in addition  to the bilious billionaires whoa rare guarding the selfish genese of their progeny, i would say that the market would go  up…  the same reaction to  tehh broe businesses and schooll closure and social isoaltioon  and  propaganda of the resistance and violence that  we see charactirzed by   the  dem leader tearing up the state of union massge.. okay here is the query . why a re investors so self destrucitve that they hope for an inumbent win.  the way the did for the cattle trader? 

Arthur Khaldarov  writes: 

because in the end they make a lot more with someone who is predictable and controllable. What good money is if you can't control/buy power with it? Another boat or a house?

Jordan Neuman writes: 

The market is now predominantly big tech.  Aren't those really Democratic stocks now?

Sep

11

Trailing Stops

September 11, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Zubin Al Genubi writes: 

I would like some advice on trailing stops.  Lets say a guy took a trade, 3 down days, buy end of day, hold for expectation period of 1 day, sell half, set a trailing stop on balance.  Where?  low of day? break even? 20 period ema?  And how is best to move it up.  Low of day? Ema?  Fixed trailing?  I realize it is not efficient but selling at the expectation period would lose a run like last month from 3000 of 16%.   Things seem "trendy" now.  Appreciate any good ideas.  Can this kind of thing be tested?  I doubt it, because normal tests don't seem to catch trends as they tend to mean reversion.  Thanks.   

Sushil Rungta writes: 

I use a % trailing stop.  Usually, once I buy a stock, depending on the stock and the expected volatility, I place a trailing stop anywhere from 8% to 25%.  That way I do not lose any of the upside.  And the % trailing stop keeps moving higher if the stock keeps moving higher.

I am a novice and not meant to be advice.  Just shat=ring what I do

Ralph Vince writes: 

I think it depends on the particular market. For equities, I've found nothing worthwhile that constitutes a mechanical trend following methodology I would risk money on

I have a lot of experience looking for it though! Perhaps  a temporal solution is manifesting in the quities indexes right now, which will oly be evident at some future point in time?

Experience in the markets teaches us nothing, and I doubt it has any value whatsoever. If fact, there is a toxicity to it in that we begin to believe we know something that day one participants aren;t burdened with.

We are tasked with finding which of the 9 sections of the tic-tac-toe board a ball will (randomly) appear in. We choose the center. It comes up randomly in the NW corner. (It must like corners?). We choose the SW corner, it shows up in the NE corner. (see, it likes corners,) We select the SE corner. It comes up in the middle (Ah, two corners, then a middle…..) and on and on ad on. 

Forever.

"I have a good sense for where that ball will come up as I;ve been doing this for years." Or, better still, "I have a good sense of where that ball will come up - it;s mathematical! It;s somewhat deterministic," (as said the man walking into the convenience store to pony up for his next magic powerball number combination).

In markets, If you find something that works, and is working, it's about to evaporate. This is why I've migrated to longer and longer-term views on things, as it results in a longer time until things evaporate. Everything we think is true in the markets, is a delusion of our own making. Even the notion of drift: in equities, vanishes - first, for  decades or so, then, with the next fall of an empire. The probability of a drawdown, of any given magnitude, approaches certainty as the length of time given for it to transpire increases.

Most things in markets (as in all of life) that are real, often tend to be dull and tedious, require work to get our arms around,  and reside nowhere near where we are looking.

Ralph Vince writes: 

The point is everything we are looking at in terms of timing mechanism is ephemeral. I like longer-term models because they might outlive me (e.g. be long S&P500 when 90 day bills /  S&P500 div yield >1.8, which has batted 9 of 9 since 1980, below) before collapsing. The flipside is a much shorter-term model that will work, until it doesn't, then won't, until it does again!

I have never encountered anything in terms of equitisinexes that works in terms of trend-following, save for the notion of long-term, upwards drift. But as I say, once you are comfortable that something will always work, it is likely near-finished. The buy all dips / drift works in our favor mentality is not immune, but has had the good fortune of being a lugubrious beast.

Sep

3

Experts Never Fail

September 3, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Zacek writes: 

The population density in Sweden is 25 per Km2 (64 people per mi2).

New York has the highest population density of any major city in the United States, with over 27,000 people per square mile.Just saying.   

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

That is why they need absolute authority.

Peter Grieve writes: 

Stockholm was doing fairly well, last time I heard. Also just sayin'.

Aug

20

Guides

August 20, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Zubin Al Genubi writes: 

Mountain guides are an elite group who guide people into the mountains and backcountry around the world.  They face high risk and uncertain conditions and their job is to mitigate risk while at the same time pushing the limits of their clients to reach higher heights.

A joke among the guides is that the most dangerous situation they can find themselves in is traveling in the mountains with a group of guides.  None of them want to speak up and point out the danger they are getting into for fear of stepping on the other guide's ego, or appearing foolish and other group dynamic issues.  In fact, group dynamics is one of the most dangerous elements in backcountry travel.  Such heuristic issues as who is the leader, fear of being considered scared (when in fact there is danger), fear of looking foolish, expert syndromes, group think, familiarity heuristics, get home itis, summit fever can contribute to disaster.

A lot of the new list members appear to be high level experienced market professionals from the looks of their intro cv's.  Chair is pretty laissez faire, but it's good to contribute without worry.  If you're wrong, someone will tell you how wrong you are here, or the market will, and that is good.  

Jeffrey Hirsch writes:

Eloquent summation Zubin and inspiring. I look forward to discovering and discussing my many flaws and errors

Aug

18

Michael Brush writes: 

So the market got wind of this early and sold off near the close ahead of the announcement?

Futures down post announcement. 

Adam Friedman writes: 

Futures are actually up a little— I think market was nervous it was going to be Susan Rice.Kamala has friends on wall st

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

The reason I don't trade is that I never, ever understand how "Wall Street" thinks when it comes to political events.  How could the choice of Ms. Harris be anything but a disaster for the Biden campaign?  Trump now has no worries about producing videos that criticize Joe Biden; his campaign can just run the clips from the campaign of Harris accusing Biden of being a racist, sexist…Then they can pull the videos of her being "touch on crime" in California with punitive sentencing for black people.  She comes from a state that the Democrats cannot possibly lose; at least Kaine won Virginia for Clinton.  In the polls that his campaign took before the primary contest with Mrs. Clinton,  Barack formerly known as Barry discovered that one of his serious weaknesses was among African-Americans, many of whom questioned whether or not he was truly "black".  What the campaign discovered was that those questions all went away as soon as voters were presented with images of his wife and children.  Someone who was considered a possible liability for the campaign became the essential partner; that is part of the explanation for how Michelle Obama became "the most admired woman in the world''.   Kamala Harris may be thought of as a "black" candidate by white people; there is going to be considerable doubt about whether black people will apply that label to a woman who is the child of a "mixed" marriage and is married to a "white" man who has adult white children from a previous marriage. 

Let's have a vote from the trading floor; who takes the over on Michelle Obama's being willing to risk her untouchable popularity by publicly embracing Kamala Harris and doing campaign commercials?

Michael Brush writes: 

If anything about the current political environment makes sense, you probably have mental issues

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

So, MB, is that a vote for the over?

Jul

22

Leo Jia writes: 

If you are in the right factions of the New Class,  it's time to celebrate as you can expect to get a piece of the pie soon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/business/china-xiao-jianhua.html 

Kklaw writes: 

NFW

That happened in 2017. He was snatched from Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong.  All of his bodyguards could not save him from armed CCP agents. The entire CCP is just like a giant mafia. His way to riches is of course through a lot of illegal deals via a whole bunch of connections within CCP. Rumor was that he shorted the Chinese market during 2015 and that pissed Xi off. Therefore Xi wanted to take him down and nationalize his financial empire.  There have been a number of Chinese billionaires who either died mysteriously or were jailed. The morale of this story is the lieutenants of the mafia can get rich and stay "free" until the head of the mafia feels the person is a threat. If Xi feels any of those billionaires is a threat to his empire, the person could be be whacked (i.e., died accidentally) or jailed. And the person's fortune would be the country's (should i say Xi's or his cronies') possessions.

Jul

19

Tom Ford writes: 

Should we be sanctioning Georgia?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-17/georgia-massaged-virus-data-to-reopen-then-voided-mask-orders?srnd=premium

Actually my comment was not meant to debate on covid numbers. Everyone will have different opinions on whether the virus is really re-surging. It depends on how the virus affected you (financially, personally, and politically). I found it interesting how we are accusing China of fake numbers (rightly so, i don't believe it either) when we may potentially also be doing the same thing. It's funny lately how some of the actions taken by our nation looked exactly like the things we've condemned China for. But hey, do as I say, not as I do….right?

Ralph, sources wise, we can debate till the next millennia what constitutes credible sources. Credibility most commonly depends on whether something sounds confirming for a reader (confirmation bias). If a news piece provides information that is inline with a reader's political affiliation and/or personal philosophies, it is more than likely the reader will find that news credible. I like to find things to read that don't agree with the general public's views because it allows for a more holistic understanding of the parties involved and their agendas. Kinda like stepping in the shoes of someone else. Its not going to fit, literally and culturally. Thats why I encourage people to go read news published by the CCP and contrast it with our own nations news. That way you can really understand what everyone's action may actually entail. The problem we have right now with China is a difference in culture, a way of life. Until we really dive deep and understand each other culturally can we ultimately find a common ground. 

Jul

19

Hernan Avella writes: 

A Fearful Asymmetry: Covid-19 and America’s Information Deficit with China

David Moser

July 11, 2020

Volume 18 | Issue 14 | Number 5

Article ID 5422

Abstract: There is a longstanding and fundamental asymmetry in level of mutual understanding between the US and China. Chinese citizens are avid consumers of American media and cultural products, whereas most Americans are woefully unfamiliar with even the basics of Chinese history and culture. This asymmetry has resulted in a situation where the US is in danger of misinterpreting or misunderstanding Chinese motivations in bilateral relations, particularly in times of crisis. This paper recounts how the Covid-19 epidemic of 2020 exacerbated existing tensions between the US and China, and how these escalations in state-to-state conflict were ilarge part due to America’s information deficit with the PRC.

Link: 

https://apjjf.org/2020/14/Moser.html?fbclid=IwAR2ZrN3-aHQojMrqtUSjHKlIonwdO8rsTlUSympmQrxMtLipatqC2WTm1OE

Jeffery Rollert writes: 

The article reminded me of old Cold War articles. Clear local perspective, and cold lanuguage discussing hot topics.  I found the premise to be thoughtful and well explained, but it seemed clouded by reaching to far from it.

K. K. Law writes: 

The author completely missed a very major point and that is likely the result of him also only having very superficial understanding of China and CCP. The author fails to account for the key role of CCP's propaganda machine which controls what the Chinese can read and see and also controls what kind of information and mid-information is allowed to be sent to the West.  The CCP has perfected its machine to control the minds and behaviors of Chinese inside the country since 1945.

Stefan Jovanovich replies: 

1948 would be a better date.  Until the KMT outlawed ownership of gold and imposed price controls - which ruined all remaining exchange value for the currency, the Maoist insurgency had no guarantee of winning.  As usual, the "conservatives" in American politics picked the wrong villain.  The communists in the State Department had little effect on the outcome; the sensible bipartisan financial experts are the people who "lost" China.

Jul

16

Leo Jia writes: 

https://youtu.be/WSDbTl9pB2o 

Jayson Pifer replies: 

There has been a series of those videos coming out, pre-covid anyway.   I believe propelled by the eruption of MMA in China and it's suppression there by the traditional martial arts.

Turns out the winner of these bouts are consistently the ones who train for the ring against actual opponents rather than their rank achieved in their Art.

I'd suggest the same answer applies to the Special Forces versus Martial Artist question.  The answer wouldn't be their employed technique, but the effectiveness of their training and it's applicability to the rules, if any, of the fighting arena.

Jul

15

I just had a nice chat with a German recruiter/headhunter.

I ask her about the current German labor market and how this (convid-
)summer compares to last year's summer ? I asked because I don't see
much difference on typical headhunter sites - lots of offers and job
openings.

She commented, that the labor mkt is quite different now. Many employees
work part-time and/or from home. Many are also satisfied with lower
wages ( as a result of part-time work) in exchange for more free time.
Many plan to keep working part-time.

I expect productivity or crater here. This is on top of a dried up
workforce even before the virus. Now many are also lazy. Such a move to
part-time does not happen gradually, but seems to occur herd-like.

Jul

13

Good stuff:  https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/75years/presentation.php

Jul

11

How

July 11, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

are you doing  and how is millie doing…'2 what is your reaction to all the police violence lately .d o you feel it shoudl be defunded?  3 artie said  that during  his tenure it wa s     aomost mpossible to arrest a b lack personage because  eveyone was loookign at you a skew.

William McCarthy replies: 

Hello Victor,

How are you doing?  Millie and I are hanging in there.  Plenty of doctor visits for the both of us.  But all is well considering.

The only thing different about the police violence today compared to the past is media technology.  Cell phone video cameras and the internet.  These recorded criminal acts by police unfortunately have always occurred by some rogue police officers that were denied. There is no justification for what was witnessed in the Minneapolis incident.  I feel for the 2 rookie officers that were present who were also charged.  There lives were ruined before their law enforcement careers even got started.

It seems that physically resisting arrest has become an expected allowable standard practice on the part of the public.  Resisting even a unlawful arrest is against the law (at least in the New York State Penal Law). The citizen's recourse is to submit to the arrest and make their claim of false arrest in court.  

The police have little influence if they are not supported by the general public.  And without the public's support they are personally discouraged from self-initiating any enforcement activity.  No one can know in advance the outcome of an encounter.  The public has been falsely educated by all of the popular TV shows that depict the law enforcement main character's swift and facile physical actions.  In real life it can get ugly fast even when the actions of the police are lawful. Few ordinary officers are prepared to make it look easy. That requires constant physical training and technique. On television the "good guy" always wins.  That is not the case in real life.  

Can society survive without the acceptance of the rule of law by the public and its enforcement by the police?  There would be little to video if the public did not physically resist arrest!

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

do yoou agree with me that the strength oof the unons makes it    almost impssiblet ofire ann officer, and no knock lawas and qualified  immunity and  oikuce nilitary equipment, and  juries favoritism to olice   needs reform. very glad to hear of  your consilience, we are abotu the same as y ou and Millie. moved out of ny. no good reason to stay for us without broadway and restaurants, just reread the Gofrather . wata is realistic?.

Victor Niederhoffer adds: 

billl mccarthy  was a friend   and student     of my father    andn chie fo the bomb and couter  intelligence dept, and  made more arrewts than anyone with his patented method. loved to biox. his book is the best crime book ever

Ken Drees writes: 

 The Godfather types will move into cities that let their police forces shutter and then there will be the peace

Jul

10

Last weekend I have completed a transcontinental travel going from Las Vegas > Los Angeles > Amsterdam > Prague.

Prior departure Delta & KLM did bombard me with docs to fill out for the trip and plethora of entry and in-flight requirements.

Vegas: almost empty airport, 99% people in masks, at about 10% of normal capacity in terms of people traffic, 1 newspaper shop open, everything else closed. West Jet flight – small Embraer plane with about 30% seats taken, comfy free mid seat arrangement, 2 people in 1st class, refreshments placed on your seat in a Ziplock bag, no service throughout the flight. Masks required on the plane during the whole flight.

Los Angeles: no transit working, had to exit the domestic terminal and walk the curb to the international terminal, 14 flights on the monitor for the whole day, destinations as such as Mexico, China, Paris & Amsterdam. Terminal completely closed except 2 newspaper shops, departure terminal complete ghost town, passengers only for my and another China flight, both relatively small planes Boeing 777-300. Passengers ranging from full-on hazmat suits, masks & shields for ICU units, to scarf over the face and only when specifically requested by the personnel. No tourists-type travelers whatsoever. Flight about 35% full. Refreshments in Ziplock bags on the seat, except 1 hot meal (hot oats with marmalade – seriously, I kid you not) mid-flight, no in-flight service as well. Masks required on the plane during the whole flight. Big fuss about several forms to fill out before departure which will be requested upon arrival in Amsterdam. People using 1! pen provided by the gate attendant.

Amsterdam: no one asking for the tons of paperwork we were forced to fill out, no temperature check at all, no in-person questions inquiring where you landed from. About 80% of the airport in masks, terminal capacity at about 25%, all shops open including high end jewelry and designers.

Prague: airport at about 20% capacity, baggage delivery at record breaking 10 minutes from plane docking at the gate. First time border control staff asking where I did land from, even though I did land in Schengen terminal, meaning there is no border control in normal circumstances. 99% of people in masks inside buildings, outside no masks.

Every single flight except Prague had bus transfer to plane location, no direct gate access – perfect petri dish environment to get the virus.

Czech legislation allows to have the test up-to 72 hour after arrival as long as you self-quarantined home till the test results. Alternatively you can arrive with test results done max 4 days before departure. In Arizona the current test result delivery is up-to 10 business days with up-to 5 days wait time for the test exam as such. In Prague I did have it 24 hours after landing, to capture the trip exposure. I considered the risk during the transit much higher compared to being tucked away in my home in an small town in the middle of the Arizona desert. PCR test results took 6 hours, based on which I sent an email to the authorities and released myself from the quarantine.

Let's see how the experience will be in about 5 weeks when I fly back to the USA.

Jul

10

3 times the chair has sunk the prez with terrible prepared remarks. Lets the cattle trader spoon get ahead of the prez in the betting odds, Mr. Kudlow should take the Cat to the Chair and tell him that's not why he was made Chair. He was supposed to be diplomatic. We know he doesn't know anything about monetary or economic theory but at least he could refrain from a fourth strike.

Jul

9

"41% of businesses closed on Yelp have shut down for good during the coronavirus pandemic"

This article may be one of the evidences that the next shoe or shoes to drop. I have seen yelp report on 26% of fitness facilities to 53% of restaurants listed on yelps that have been closed forever. Regarding the US-China deal, I don't believe CCP will hold up their end of bargain. But then it is a ultra-small potato, in comparison to the significant loss of lives loss and the unprecedented impact on the US economy caused by the Wuhan virus.

If Trump wants to sing the praise of signing of the trade deal or use the per-pandemic economy and wants to get reelected, he is grossly mistaken. Whatever playbook he used to win 2016 won't work this time around given the current pandemic-driven unprecedented downturn. Just don't know who is advising Trump on his reelection campaign. Whoever they may be, they all need to be fired. Whoever running the campaign needs to adapt and modify the campaign quickly. Running for the highest office against one's opponent is like MMA competition in the UFC. It needs a well-rounded fighter. Just being a strong striker or 10th degree black-belt jujitsu expert can't enable a fighter to win the champion. It needs a strategy to adapt and change according to the opponent and the surrounding circumstances as well. In the mean time, I am buckling up and brace for the impact of having Beijing and dementia-stricken Biden in the White House, and the Democratic-controlled house and senate. I would like to be proven wrong, but until there are new data to show otherwise, that is what I envision for the time being.

Jul

9

In the end, they will push hard (HARD) for mail in ballots to ensure their (liberal) victories. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to do almost all mail in ballots. There will be a major ramp up of fear. We'll see a major spike in cases and deaths blasted out from the media and the democrats will in congress will be all over the news trumpeting doom and gloom and the end of civilization as we know it and that we need to close down the polls and do all mail in voting)

Anyone who doesn't think that there is a huge opportunity for fraud with mail in ballots is just disingenuous.

Heck, even if the non-liberals were pushing for mail in ballots, I would be saying that that is ripe for fraud.

I would be suspicious of any group that is pushing for mail in ballots. Why? Because that means that they are prepared for it. Prepared in a fraudulent way. I would say the same thing if non-liberals were pushing for it.

We're being played by TPTB and the useful idiots are lining up to worship at the altar of liberalism. And those of us that don't line up to worship at their altar will see the modern day version of Brownshirts unleashed on us. We've gotten a taste of that already.

anonymous writes: 

We've had mail in ballots in CO for years. I'm not sure mailing in versus filling out a ballot in person changes things dramatically when we think about fraud. Fraud happens when what was dropped in the box doesn't match the results.

Voting seems like a great way to use blockchain so a person can trace their vote and see it be counted anonymously. That may a leap too far, but it (on the surface) could solve many issues of fraud. Smarter people than me feel free to chime in. 

Brian Mulvihill writes: 

OSTK-backed Voatz has been garnering momentum on blockchain voting over last year.

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