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Surfpuppy, I see you've made 4531 posts to the Reader. I hope you're not billing your clients for that time, or perhaps business is not as good as it should be. 4531 posts.....you should write a novel and at least get paid for it.— January 28, 2011 9:10 a.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Surf, to not embarrass you as you try to whip out your penis and it fails considerably in the measuring department, I will state that your comparison of the top tenth of the top 1% is with great fault as the top 1% pays 40% of the income taxes in this country. And, yes, my trading acumen makes me an expert on a whole wide range of subjects, including government financing, laws, FINREG, etc. in addition to many other things. However, you are a lawyer, a class of person that I hire when needed, much like I hire a plumber, or the guy who mows my yard. You haven't mentioned your expertise in the markets, your annual rate of return, or any of the other things I queried you on except to tell me how full of baloney and BS I am. Neither did you mention or respond in a civil manner to any logical deconstructions I made of your arguments. You really give off the vibe of being a sort of bully, piling on your mostly incorrect psychobabble that you don't even realize how foolish it makes you look, plus you're wrong. You're a lawyer, trained in twisting words and ideas to fit your needs. You ought to stick with the lawyering and don't give up your day job. I'll give you the last word as I will not respond anymore to your taunts and invective, and I will give this one to you as I suspect that you really need a victory at this time in your life, no matter how small. I'll be munificent, and give you this one. However, I am done with this discussion and won't waste any more of my precious time on you or this discussion.— January 20, 2011 1:02 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
I own lots of corn and i'll probably muddle along until I make a profit. I don't know if gold is overbought, but my models remain murky. Either way, you would not have a calculable edge either buying it or selling it at the current price, As I earlier said, gold had a much greater value in 1980 when it hit $850, but the greatest value was in 1869 when Fiske and Gould tried to corner the gold market and ran it up to $300. back then, $300 could buy a halfway decent house.— January 20, 2011 12:42 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
But we are not really keeping the buck down as all the other currencies are losing value. They complain about our GDP/Debt ratio at 100% and overlook Japan's ratio at 245% and eurozone's ratio at 78% average. Incidentally the doomsayers fail to realize that both the 30 year bond and ten year are trading at 119, nearly 120. That's par plus 20 full basis points. Also, whenever the market has any hiccup, the money goes into the dollar and bonds and they rally quite sharply. Anyways, I won't worry about a demise until bonds are trading at 40, and at that point I will turn my sights to going long the bond market, but for now I'm short. Munis might be looking good for a buy if we have a crisis and the good munis go down in price with the bad ones. Defaulted munis pay off 66% vs the 42% for corporate, and the insured or otherwise guaranteed munis are nice, as many are paying 7-8% yield.— January 20, 2011 12:32 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Don, your comment about other currencies being so weal is 100% correct. One merely has to look at the price of commodities in those currencies, at their markets, to prove your point. You ought to do a story on private central banks rigging their currencies for their own gain, like the Fed has done. Or, you ought to do a story on the average rate of pay of employees who work for the Fed, janitors and secretarys included.— January 20, 2011 6:20 a.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Don, only 27% invested in stocks, I feelo bad for you for missing the move freom the S&P low of 666 in 2009. You ought to read Henry Clews book that I linked as he mentions the best way for making money in stocks that I've ever seen. When, in the face of a collapsing market everything is going down in a bout of revilsion selling, fade the sellers and you will make money, or at least in every panic since 1799. Why aren't the central banks being beaten up for this liquidity. Why isn't anyone noticing the extra money out there in all currencies? Right now, my clearing firm will allow me to borrow as much money as I want, but at 1.3%. Borrowed money is not the same as OPM as it has to be paid back.— January 20, 2011 6:11 a.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
And how do you know this? By the way, the British Pound failed in 1992 when Soros broke the Bank of England.. The pound is still around. It would take a lot for the yuan to be the reserve currency. The Chinese would have to remove the strict currency controls, they would need to let it float,and their central bank would have to end the taxation that remittances and transfers of the yuan face. It would have to be a free currency, transfreeable and convertable anywhere in the world. Gold might be in a bull market, but this isn't the greatest value gold has ever reached. It had higher value in 1980 when it reached $850, and it's greatest value was in 1869 when Gould and Fiske tried to corner the gold market and and it hit $300. Gold is just a commodity and as Refriedgringo said, so are most currencies. You can buy currencies, rent currencies, sell currencies, loan currencies, subordinate currencies, mortgage currencies, swap currencies, trade currencies, tranche currencies, and everything else you can do with commodities. The USD has been a commodity since 1971 because of the Nixon Gold Shock when the dollar ceased to be backed by anything. Also, you said that Moody's and S&P have made it clear that the dollar is hanging by a thread. Perhaps you were referring to the media overhype of a warning to the bond market by an unnamed official of Moody's who also warned France Germany and the UK, and they also said that S&P was issuing a warning. Incidentally when that story crossed my Bloomberg machine, the dollar went up against the Euro, yen, and Swiss, and bonds from both ends of the yield curve went up. If the US had our debt downgraded to from a AAA to an Aa, have you calculated just how many basis points less that we would get for our bonds? I never saw mention of the "Dollar hanging by a thread." in that story.— January 19, 2011 8:09 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
The dollar is collapsing right now??? I'm watching and trading the USD/EUR right now and it's trading at 1.34270 and the puts aren't trading at a premium. Dollar is a little weak against the yen, but manageable, and the pound is at 159.170 and the dollar is up a little against the pound. The Swissie is 1.04 and the Canadian Loonie is at .99370 down against the dollar. The put options are not trading with a high risk premium (no more than the calls), so I don't see your point. Generally, I think it's safer to not try to predict the future, and certainly not try to predict the future as none of us are clairvoyant. The market is telling you what's going on, and the dollar is fine for now. If you're so convinced the dollar is going down the tubes, are you loading up on puts so you can make money? Are you shorting the dollar? Are you guessing or do you have inside info? Are you a clairvoyant, a soothsayer? Just a thought but perhaps it would be better if you stick to your legal stuff, and not get your panties in a bunch about market related stuff which you are painfully ignorant. Not trying to bust your chops but I wouldn't pretend to know case law, or any law for that matter like you do.....Why does everyone pretend that they know about markets?— January 19, 2011 5:50 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
Don, the Fed being controlled by the big banks? I bet that a plurality of Fed Governors would disagree with you. Do you have any numbers or official sources within the Fed to prove your contention that the Fed=>Big Banks=>Treasury or is this just opinion and editorial again? OK, You have a problem with my solution, but I didn't know I had a solution, I consider my plan of action a way of dealing with all of this. There really isn't anything anyone can do unless one would do what they did in 1789 France or 1918 Russia. Short of that, the government class has too much control. You think big business controls government, I contend that at the very top there's a symbiotic relationship as evidenced by the migration of top government apparatchiks into business and vice versa. You and the rest of the talking class makes a big deal about the bottom 90%, and I feel that the best way they can be helped is by giving them jobs, not handouts. The average poor person today has a much better life than Louix XIV had in many ways. He has access to medical care that Louis could only dream about. He has year round refrigeration, better schooling, better travel methods available, access to better roads, better food, sanitation, electricity, cars, flight, and on and on. You might think that the 90% is going to revolt, that instability will take hold, but I contend that our instability would be much like the instability and hyperinflation of the Post WWI Weimar as our populations have much in common socioeconomically with the Germans of that era. Of course it could cause a tyrant to take power, much like Hayek described, but one can make a good case that our last two presidents are tyrants. I suspect that most people will muddle along like they have for the past 2 thousand years, but whatever happens, the human condition won't change and we will always have greed, war, sloth, avarice, et al. As far as fleecing the public by the floor traders, if one is going to place their money "at risk," they ought to understand that the money is "at risk" And the fleecing of the public from the floor traders is not wholesale. The difference is that the floor trader gets to buy at the bid and sell at the offer whereas the public gets to buy at the offer and sell at the bid. Just that little tick on each side of the trade makes the price of a seat well worth it. That being said, the electronic trading is changing the floor atmosphere as the pits are disappearing at a fast rate with computer servers taking up the bulk of volume. Still, even with the servers, the members get better liquidity, reduced commissions and fees, better margin rates, and the big deal, no margin, marked to market on all spread trades.— January 19, 2011 5:36 p.m.
Wall Street Traders Bring Home Far More Than Brain Surgeons
I never mentioned the word "Like," you completely made that up and put words in my mouth. That's OK with me, as I'm pretty used to that. An old, now dead WSJ reporter in the 80's used to deliberately misquote me quite frequently when discussing my specific market, and I think it was a game with him.— January 19, 2011 3:32 p.m.