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SK in CV
ParticipantT[quote=ltsdd]
I think if you can weather the near-term downtrend you might be royally rewarded (on second thought, UVXY has been on this perpetual downtrend since it was created). I bought it today hoping for a nice little bounce that never came…and got carried away at a luncheon that I missed the closing bell by 7 minutes…oh well.[/quote]It can’t do anything but go down long term. Because it’s leveraged, it’s essentially an insurance policy, and the premiums erode with time. The only way to hold it without losing significant principle is to sell premium against it when it’s up. With it so low, that can’t possibly work, so it’s purely a timing play.
Participant[quote=ltsdd]I bought UVXY and didn’t unload it at the end of the day….I might be in a world of hurt come Monday.[/quote]
VIX is at it’s lowest weekly close in more than 3 years. I got into UVXY again yesterday too. VIX has to go up eventually. Just a matter of whether the theta of the leverage kills me first. It’s been brutal the last few months. It’s lost almost 60% since it’s reverse split less than 5 months ago. Can’t hold it too long.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
You’re right, I brain farted there. Still, where are you getting your numbers from, and how do they account for the people who are not willing to admit to a govt agency or survey taker that they own guns?[/quote]
I did a search on the google and found about 6 articles, I think referring to at least 3, maybe 4 surveys in the last few years. They probably account for the people who won’t admit that they own a gun the same way they account for the people who brag that they own guns and really don’t.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
And how can your numbers for individual gun owners be lower than the number you’re noted for households who own a gun? Where are you getting your numbers from?[/quote]
It has to be lower. Households are always made up of at least 1 person, never less than 1. Average households are more than 1. If 1 person of 4 who live in a household owns a gun, that’s a 100% of households, but only 25% of individuals.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
You didn’t read the first quote completely. It says that gun lobbyists claim ~2.5 million, and that **conservative** estimates by those who are anti-gun say that they are used tens of thousands of times in a year.The drop in crime over the past couple of decades has more to do with “Three Strikes” and other similar laws, and also with more of a law enforcement focus on gangs, etc. It has nothing to do with fewer guns, IMO, because it would be the law-abiding citizens who would be most likely to get rid of their guns, not criminals.
As for the percentage of gun owners, I think that the percentage of the overall population counts more than households. We’re talking about support for an anti-gun agenda, so it’s the raw population numbers (especially voters) that matters.[/quote]
Actually I did read that. And looked into the claim of 2.5 million per year. It’s a number that’s been pushed by the NRA. The data is more than 15 years old, and it comes from a number ofk different surveys. Some of them ask if the respondent has ever used a gun in self-defense. Some ask if they’ve used a gun in self-defense in the last 5 years. And from those surveys they came up with 2.5 million per year. It’s bogus.
On an annual basis, I suspect that number is in the low thousands. There doesn’t appear to be any recent surveys asking the question directly. 2.5 million per year would be almost 7,000 a day. Yet we almost never hear about them. How can that be possible?
The drop in crime may be in part related to 3 strikes laws, though all states don’t have them. The larger cause is demographics. Men in their late teens to mid-20’s commit most crimes. There are fewer of them now than there were 3 decades ago.
I think you’re right that the percentage of gun owners is more important than homes with guns. Based on a quick review of 4-6 recent surveys, it appears that number is somewhere between 20 and 25%.
Participant[quote=CA renter]Yes, millions a year. No bullshit. Most incidents where guns are used in self-defense are never reported (I’m one of them). Even the most conservative estimates show tens or hundreds of thousands of crimes thwarted every year by guns. Something from dailykos/Mother Jones for you, lest anyone suggest we are “cherry picking” our sources:
MJ also points out how the gun lobby claims around 2.5 million instances of ‘defensive gun use’ or self-defense using a gun. The comparison to federal crime data from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, in chart form, is downright ridiculous. The federal crime data from 2007-2011 tallies 338,700 uses of guns in self-defense, but if you believe the gun lobby, that number should be 12,500,000 — more than 36 times as many. Lies, damn lies and statistics, eh?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/19/1203254/-More-NRA-mythbusting-do-guns-prevent-crime
As a former victim of violent criminals, and also one who supports the Second Amendment because TYRANNY CAN HAPPEN HERE, I fully support the people’s right to own guns. That ownership should not be registered or tracked by the government in any way. Gun registration has NEVER prevented a single crime; the only reason for registration is to ensure the soldiers/police know where to go to confiscate weapons if a tyrant (or tyrants) ever comes into power and they want to prevent a revolution or stop a resistance effort.[/quote]
I think maybe that article you linked to doesn’t say what you think it says. Or at very least, it doesn’t support your “millions a year”. The part you bolded indicates, on average, over a 5 year period, it was fewer than 70,000 defensive gun uses per year.
And nowhere near 60% of the population owns guns. The percentage of homes with guns has very recently risen a little bit (with the very small increase possibly being statistically insignificant), after falling for the last 4 decades. Depending on which survey, it’s somewhere between 34 and 39% of households that have guns. Not individual ownership, but households with at least 1 gun. Note that the falling ownership rate correlates with the falling murder rate over that same time period. Fewer households with guns, fewer murders.
May 30, 2014 at 7:13 PM in reply to: Moving money to another country for better interest rates #774595Participant[quote=Jazzman]It is getting harder and harder to open and maintain foreign currency accounts abroad due to IRS filing requirements. Those few banks that were willing are now no longer wanting the hassle. One bank said they did not see why the local tax payer should be on the hook for US tax filing requirements, and will be closing my account. Just like that. Another, huge US bank, will not let me have access their best eurodollar savings rates in spite of being a long standing client. Yet, another US bank based abroad just turned me down, even though I have a US account with them. Fixed incomers are getting more and more screwed. Not only are you getting negative nothing, you’ve got to be denominated in USDs, AND have your accounts in the US. Although this affects few people, to those that is does, it is very irksome.[/quote]
Try UBS. It’s possible you may have to go to Europe to open the account, but they don’t have any problem holding non-dollar investments for US citizens. No idea what their minimum account is, and their fees aren’t cheap. The have a crappy online interface, no trading or transacting online. All docs are delivered via email. And they do send 1099’s at the end of the year. But you can hold your assets in any denomination.
Participant[quote=EconProf][quote=FlyerInHi]What about deficit spending and money printing. Will they not cause hyperinflation as some have predicted?[/quote]
So far, no, to the surprise of all of us.[/quote]Not quite “all of us”. There have been predictions of hyperinflation for decades. Ron Paul, in pushing for a return to the gold standard, said this:
I believe such a standard to be not only desirable and feasible, but absolutely necessary if we aim to avoid the very real possibility of hyperinflation in the near future, and economic collapse.
He said that more than 34 years ago. And has repeated it often since then. So far, he’s been wrong every time.
There are many economists that were pushing for an even larger stimulus without fear of higher than target inflation. Inflation doesn’t happen until demand exceeds supply. We haven’t seen that, and it hasn’t been anywhere on the horizon for the last 7 years. While Keynes wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about recent monetary policy, he did accurately predict that it wouldn’t lead to hyperinflation, absent excess demand.
Undoubtedly there will be inflation sometime in the future. But not any time soon. And there are a whole lot of economists that have been saying that for the last 7 years.
Participant[quote=moneymaker]Companies have laid off, paid dividends to prop up stock price, and yet are still struggling with earnings. [/quote]
For the most part, well run companies don’t have a lot of excess employees. So layoffs aren’t to increase profits, they’re done in anticipation of lower demand. (some companies over-do it, in order to increase profits, and often end up paying the price as Walmart has over the last couple years.)
But more importantly, enterprise companies aren’t struggling so much with earnings. Growth hasn’t been booming, but S&P 500 reported earnings are up almost 6-fold from 2008, up almost 100% since 2009, and are up 23% since 2010. It hasn’t been smooth sailing every quarter, but reported earnings for the 4 months this year has shown an increase over Dec ’13 of over 2.5%. On an annual basis, it would be more than an 8% increase in profits.
There are areas that are still struggling, but overall, corporate profits don’t paint a picture of a struggling economy.
Participant[quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.
Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.
He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.
Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]
Question for you…do you think people with schizophrenia are just weak? And if only they were stronger, they wouldn’t have hallucinations?
Participant[quote=livinincali]The gun debate is all about fear. Most of those advocating for increased gun control are doing from a position of fear. Afraid that they or their friends/family could be a victim a crime committed by a gun. Many laws are created from a position of fear. How many billions per year do we spend on airline security because we’re fearful of 9/11 happening again.
[/quote]
The exact same thing can be said for many who oppose any and all gun control. On one side you have those with very rational fears that seek an irrational solution, and on the other side, those with irrational fears.
Participant[quote=spdrun]
iin his mind, he was trying, but his effortsinvolved extremely ineffective attemptsbasically just walking around and smiling at girls.
Exactly, so the rejection was mostly in his head … I’d suspect that 99% of the women didn’t even notice he was interested, and the other 1% may have thought it was a passing smile, not really to be acted on.[/quote]
This wasn’t just “the rejection was mostly in his head”. He hadn’t been rejected. I think most guys, maybe even some women here will get this analogy.
When I was in high school, I played on the basketball team. That’s a mild exaggeration, because I didn’t play. I went to practice every day, and sat on the bench during games. I wanted to play, but I knew I wasn’t anywhere near as good as the guys playing ahead of me. But there was this guy who sat next to me on the bench that was convinced that the coach hated him, and he really was as good as the guys who were playing. That he should be “entitled” to play. Rodger wasn’t like this guy. Rodger was a kid in the stands who was convinced the coach hated him, and that’s the reason he wasn’t playing, and he was angry as hell about it. Despite the fact that he’d never tried out for the team. Despite the fact that he’d never picked up a basketball.
That’s not a sense of entitlement. That’s displaced anger. And everything he wrote about women, about everyone else that he was going to “get back at” was displaced anger. It had no rational basis. That’s just bat-shit crazy.
Participant[quote=Blogstar]If the father is the director of hunger games how can anyone rule out fucked up family and low values?[/quote]
He was the AD. Still financially highly successful under most metrics, but not nearly as high profile. And I think I read somewhere AD for 2nd unit. His parents were divorced and he lived with his mother, who didn’t have near the financial means as his father. Maybe if he’d grown up in south central, his brain would have miraculously healed itself.
Participant[quote=Blogstar]
I guess you want it all black or white don’t you? Only brain ,no values or family.
What a cop out.[/quote]I don’t think any of it is black and white. Mental illness is complicated, and it can affect people irrespective of parenting and environment. And sometimes there are neither things that could have been differently nor solutions.
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