Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

Would he have done better in hard income producing assets? --- sorry, but I maybe mistaken. But don't paper asset holders look down on hard asset holders because hard assets are so backward?

What killed him is he got distracted from what he knew was right. Anybody who survived 6 years fighting this bull and was still solvent knew what he was doing. Most of the traders who were bearish in 2009 didn't survive 2 years.

[Higgenbotham]

On September 19 I hadn't heard from that guy since August 28. That morning he sent me an e-mail calling a top in the market. After the market started to drop I went back and checked it against the chart. He had called the top to the exact hour before the Ebola scare dropped the S&P 200 points.

Nobody's perfect but he had enough raw talent to stay in the game. I think these systems are designed to crack people mentally, even highly talented people.

[John]

> I think these systems are designed to crack people mentally, even
> highly talented people.

I don't see how it's possible how you and other people like you could
possibly have gone through the past few years and remained sane. I
get a headache just thinking about it, and I have no skin in the game.

[Higgenbotham]

I don't see how it's possible how you and other people like you could
possibly have gone through the past few years and remained sane. I
get a headache just thinking about it, and I have no skin in the game.

That was his main problem as I saw it. He finally cracked under the pressure and lost his sanity.

This conversation reminds me of something I witnessed when I was about 25. I may have mentioned this before. I moved into a neighborhood and every morning at about the same time a man who would go outside and yell at the top of his lungs. He was far enough away I couldn't see him. I asked the neighbor about this. She said he was the top student in their high school class. He took a look at how the world was and he lost his mind.

[Higgenbotham]

I dunno if this is worth repeating from 2012. John, go ahead and delete if you think it's a waste of space.

You think there is a shortage of competent people because the structure in place does everything possible to not hire them, prevent them from advancing, and get rid of them at first opportunity so there is no more risk to the upper management chain.

Thinking about previous comments, two ideas were put forth - there may be a shortage of competent people as a whole due to greater complexity, and/or there may be a shortage of competent people in most organizations.

Your comment reminds me of some things I saw many years ago. I bought a house in a lower income neighborhood and one of the first things I noticed was I could hear a man yelling at the top of his lungs every morning. One of the neighbors said she knew him, he had graduated first in his (their) class and had gone crazy. Had another neighbor who was on food stamps from time to time, slept in a dumpster from time to time after his house was foreclosed on after a divorce, etc. His history was that he had worked at Texas Instruments and the place drove him nuts. To hear him tell the story, he was brilliant and everyone else was stupid. Normally, I would dismiss that but I saw a lot of evidence to back up his claims. One day I gave him a ride and the heater in my car didn't work. He told me to stop at the hardware store and got a pair of alligator clips and had the heater working in about 2 minutes. He pulled the ashtray out and told me to attach the alligator clip to the metal part of the ashtray whenever I wanted to turn on the heat. I could relate many other instances to demonstrate that the entire family was brilliant. Yet, they were all on goverment aid and the males were all in trouble with the law. His kid did work for me (which was outstanding), sometimes leaving for an appointment with his probation officer.

Seems to me it's the deficit spending that allows these types of people to be pushed out, as the deficit spending allows very large marginal and politically favored organizations with perhaps a disproportionate number of incompetents to be profitable. Without deficit spending, money printing, whatever we call it, you just can't afford to marginalize highly competent people. And the funny thing is, the system is so repressive towards the competent that many of them become permanently dysfunctional or disabled and reliant on government aid - at least, that's what I've seen - which often extends to their offspring. Which is perhaps another way to describe how societies collapse.

Another acquaintance I knew in that town started a retail electronics store and did $5 million in sales the first or second year. The guy was brilliant, the business failed, he lost his mind and he stabbed himself through the heart, leaving two young kids behind. His daughter went on to graduate first in her HS class and was a National Merit finalist. She wants to be an alternative medicine practitioner. If current trends continue, the FDA will probably raid her office, shut her down, and she'll commit suicide. This would be especially likely if she turns out to be highly competent and can cure people at low cost. Both of the kids are afraid they'll end up committing suicide. I suppose if her Dad had gone to work for Best Buy he'd still be around, but some people just can't do that. The landscape today is very inhospitable for folks like him. My sister runs a small business and lately she has told me that some days she wishes she was dead.

[aedens]

The effects to the dialectic root scripted from even the basic model of social democratist, communal socialist or as FDR knew there are no accidents to the synthesis to control metrics. As we pointed out here at least Marshall had one more scruple than most to mitigate two views from the synthecratic operational overlords to view the data with the whitehall study. To few regard the actual problems to executive, legislative and judicial. Then there is banking and the casting out all them that sold and bought in the temple. The compass is the four winds and the fact the polarity changes but providence never will.

Mishna states that because of greed, the market for birds rose so much that not even the poorer woman of the community could afford them.
Picking up the pieces of Intellectual Property to maximize profite can hit snags as we know.
Proverbs 6:14 With perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord.

http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... nin#p10168 As we know the Operatives vary none at all. Tool boxes.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/whitehallII/pdf/wii-booklet updated link that data indeed is fragile and can serve a function of utility.
My point is early in life I seen the effects but it still wears on you since facets leveraged diversity. The old saying legislate morality as they worship in public but count in private since Rome.
Our so called math teacher in school decided that one was not fit for his class of classes, but unknown he was doing there students homework since he had it in primary private school. The irony still lingers on so many events in life you must balance the emotion with humor that looking at life through a soda straw was their only option in the silent weapons of the silent war they never seen upon them. We all have blind spots and choices to help each other since Cain and Able may of both been emo brats so who knows, or really to linger as walking in political circles as he warned us.
Like my wifes people say slap the grandmother when the child is a issue. As I was told when your teacher devoted themselves to help others who was sold themselves for a candy bar in the war you understand the humilty later and the care they passed on to students in my opinion only.

[gerald]

Higgenbotham --- Regarding your above posts, you have to understand ( you probably do ) that we live in a very twisted world. The truly competent are denigrated and attacked, simple solutions or unique solutions are suppressed and/or their creators killed, etc. etc. this drives those who see solutions crazy or to suicide. Why is this so twisted ? So people have things to do, and so that others have power. --- Two examples. (#1) A while back I had a discussion with my tax accountant. ( I would not even think about doing it my self, too complicated and the laws are always changing, and I have a short return, only about 40 pages ). I made a passing comment on how to simplify the tax code. My account said, "But if that is done, what do I do?" ---(#2) I saw a demonstration, with available plans using readily available parts and by making some modest changes on a auto engine, converting a gasoline engine to run on 15% gasoline and 85% water with no drop in performance. -- the ramifications?

Too many are invested in the way things are, and will kill to keep it that way.

[aedens]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-0 ... bailout-do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt

http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 160#p27152

Polemic with the structuralist program.

An estimated 4.7 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of gas are located in Greece, an amount more than the estimated combined reserves of Cyprus and Israel, which are another 4.5 tcm. Based on those figures he assured that the Eastern Mediterranean contained 50% of the European Union's gas needs for the next 30 years and stretched the need for the construction of pipeline infrastructure to transfer these amounts to Europe so as to diversify its imports. As a comparison, Azerbaijan’s proven reserves are estimated at 900 billion cubic meters (bcm).

And here we are talking about ink and paper which alludes me to who really has the poker chips going forward.....

http://usawatchdog.com/time-to-tell-the ... ren-hudes/
whether we love each other enough to save the world, or we all go to hell

[aedens]

http://news.yahoo.com/exxon-ceo-used-lo ... nance.html
http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/03/seth-k ... t-letters/ yes, bear and bulls, as the sovereign in the common man who decides.
http://gdxforum.com/forum/search.php?st ... 1&start=10 energy margin clusters
The nation's debt currently stands at $18.1 trillion.
Time line (Luke 21:32, Psalms 90:10, Dan 9)
fig tree

[gerald]

Do you think governments are beginning to understand how bad they have made a mess of things?

The Weirdest Thing You'll See Today --- http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-0 ... -see-today

watch the video

I don't think a comment is needed --- Is there a problem?