The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: lprkn on January 22, 2008, 09:21:44 pm
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Well, dividends.
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I have never really gotten the Stocks thing. I mean... they are selling a lot of stocks because they are worried that the world market is going down or whatever... but... the value of the stocks only goes down if everyone sells them. So, everyone sells the stocks because they are afraid everyone else will sell them...
there has to be a less ridiculous way to do this. I know that a thing's value is only what people will pay for it but... it basically seems like Stocks are an entirely fake concept. Do they have any value other than as little pieces of paper that people will buy from you, in hopes of later selling them for more money?
If you actually get the little pieces of paper (also known as stock certificates), you can use them to build fires. Also, really cool paper airplanes. You can also stuff them into your shoes to patch holes.
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Do they have any value other than as little pieces of paper that people will buy from you, in hopes of later selling them for more money?
Nabu asked this in a thread about retirement. You dont actually get pieces of paper any more, unless you pay extra for them (they have to be printed and the broker has to get them and mail them to you and its just a pain in the ass). Stocks are shares of ownership in a company, that is what you are buying, it is not a fake concept. Stocks are very real.
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Do they have any value other than as little pieces of paper that people will buy from you, in hopes of later selling them for more money?
Yes. A share of stock is an ownership interest in the corporation. Of course, it's usually far more complicated than this, but if a corporation has issued 1,000,000 shares of stock and you own one share, then you own one-millionth of that company.
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Yes. A share of stock is an ownership interest in the corporation. Of course, it's usually far more complicated than this, but if a corporation has issued 1,000,000 shares of stock and you own one share, then you own one-millionth of that company.
Also I forgot to mention par value. Stocks have a par value that they can be traded in for regardless of the market price. This is actually kind of joke though, being that most par values I have ever seen are like 1/1000th of a cent or something ridiculous like that.
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but, see, what are you getting with that. If I buy one share or 10 of Coca Cola, I do not get anything other than the ability to later sell that share, correct? That just seems silly to me.
Oh what the dogg? We are about education.
For realzz.
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If you buy enough to own a significant part of the company, then you get a say in how its run. This isn't easy to do with corporations like Microsoft or Coca Cola, but there's nothing preventing you from doing it if you can raise the scratch.
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Also I forgot to mention par value. Stocks have a par value that they can be traded in for regardless of the market price. This is actually kind of joke though, being that most par values I have ever seen are like 1/1000th of a cent or something ridiculous like that.
Well, sort of.
Most stocks are issued "No Par value" these days. About the only place par value is relevant anymore, that I'm aware of, is in insurance companies. The par value of the stock is the company's "capital" and the amount paid for the stock above par value is "surplus".
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but, see, what are you getting with that. If I buy one share or 10 of Coca Cola, I do not get anything other than the ability to later sell that share, correct? That just seems silly to me.
You get the right to vote on who will be on the Board of Directors and on certain other issues of corporate governance. In a sense, it's like being a "citizen" of Coca-Cola. You also get the right to collect any declared dividends, and in the event the company is liquidated, your pro rata share of the corporate assets (less its liabilities). It's the same as owning a part of any business, only on a much smaller scale.
Also, people purchase many things, both tangible and intangible, with the thought that the value will increase. Does the subject's intangiblity make it useless?
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Bill Hicks always taught me that the market is fake, is this not true?
Seriously though, a much more important thing: I just graduated and am moving to Boulder/Denver in a couple weeks, is this going to effect my ability to get a job? Are people really losing their retirements today? Like, I have the little apple stock thing in my dashboard but I don't understand what it means? I know my dad always told me about people with degrees working at mcdonalds during the Reagan administration.
If it gets bad enough will the news stop talking about dead white women and the men who kill them? That would almost make it worth it.
Okay, just turned on Fox News, it is crime, MSNBC is Chris Mathews masturbating on hilary clintons dead political career as he sees it and CNN is talking about this.
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I just graduated and am moving to Boulder/Denver in a couple weeks, is this going to effect my ability to get a job? Are people really losing their retirements today?
Unemployment is still historically low for America and relatively low compared to global rates (ours is about 5%, the EU has an average rate of 8.5). The fact is that most, 95%, of the people in america who want a job, have a job. This is little consolation to the other 5%, however. UE is rising which means employers aren't going to work as hard to recruit new employees, which means lower starting salaries and less frequent 'raises'. You may or may not feel this directly, but if you can't find a job and you want something to blame, go ahead. I think one would be hard pressed to find anyone who lost their retirement today - these losses are paper losses, you don't actually lose any money until you sell the stocks.
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Unemployment is still historically low for America and relatively low compared to global rates (ours is about 5%, the EU has an average rate of 8.5). The fact is that most, 95%, of the people in america who want a job, have a job. This is little consolation to the other 5%, however. UE is rising which means employers aren't going to work as hard to recruit new employees, which means lower starting salaries and less frequent 'raises'. You may or may not feel this directly, but if you can't find a job and you want something to blame, go ahead. I think one would be hard pressed to find anyone who lost their retirement today - these losses are paper losses, you don't actually lose any money until you sell the stocks.
95% of the people who are looking for work are employed. As I understand it, there is a certain percentage of people who are not working and are no longer seeking work. Is this number measured anywhere?
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That is an interesting question but is it perhaps getting to be time to split this thread?
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95% of the people who are looking for work are employed. As I understand it, there is a certain percentage of people who are not working and are no longer seeking work. Is this number measured anywhere?
Yes, the bureau of labor statistics does this. There are 6 kinds of unemployment and all of them are counted as best as these things can be. There is a measure of part time employed workers who want full time work, but to my knowledge there is not a measure of fully employed people who are looking for another/different job.
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I own stocks.
I am not destitute.
Sometime this year or next, I will sell those stocks and use the proceeds to buy a house in a market that is finally inching back towards reality. If it turns out those stocks are worth less than I paid for them, I will take that as a net loss and pay less money to the government.
I'm also putting money in an IRA that buys stocks, and this year's contribution will buy more stocks (because they are worth less, individually). When the market recovers, this year's money will be worth a lot more than last year's money. Over time it will be worth a lot of money.
This is basically how it works if you don't panic and/or think that day trading and house flipping are legitimate uses of economics.
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95% of the people who are looking for work are employed. As I understand it, there is a certain percentage of people who are not working and are no longer seeking work. Is this number measured anywhere?
Is one of the six called "funenmployent"?
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Is one of the six called "funenmployent"?
The BLS does measure people that just don't want to work. Wealthy sons of inheritance are in this group of funemployment.
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The BLS does measure people that just don't want to work. Wealthy sons of inheritance are in this group of funemployment.
Because there are no daughters of inheritance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_socialites).
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Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.
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Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.
It's things like this that earn you cans. I can't wait until the whole world is centered around a can-based economy.
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I haven't read this whole thread yet, but my portfolio went down by about two thousand clams, and my broker called me and we righted some wrongs. I'm upset about this, but I have another 40 years until retirement, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
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I am late to this particular thread. A few years back, on another message board, someone said "I don't understand the stock market, someone explain it to me like you'd explain it to a third-grader," and me and my MBA wrote this piece, which was very well received. Apologies for length.
Joe owns a coffee shop. He put up a lot of his own money to start it, and now it's very successful. So successful, in fact, that he'd like to open another one across town. However, Joe doesn't have the extra cash to buy and equip a new store, since the money he makes either goes back into the business or pays for his vacation house on St. Lucia.
So he gathers up a group of his friends, and says, "If you give me $100 each, I'll give you a share of my profits down the road." His friends think this is a good idea, but say, "If we're going to put up our money for this, we want some say in what the company does." So they agree that Joe will handle day-to-day operations, but when there's a big decision, they'll get together and vote on it. 90 of his friends pony up $100 each, and Joe puts off buying a Jaguar for a month and puts up $1,000 of his own money. He now has $10,000, and uses it to build the second coffee house. There are 100 shares in the company now.
At the end of the year, Joe totals up the books and finds that the company has made $1,000 profit, or $10 per share. What's more, sales are steadily increasing. So he writes each of the 90 individual shareholders a check for $10, and encloses a letter where he says "I expect our profits to increase 20% per year for the foreseeable future." He also pockets $100 for his own 10 shares.
Joe's shareholders do the math. If profits go up 20% per year, next year they should get a dividend of $12. The year after that, $14.40. By the end of year 6, Joe will have paid them $99.30 total--almost their original $100 back. If the trend continues for 20 years, Joe will have paid them $1,866.88 total, so by putting $100 at the start they'll get back over 18 times that over time! Joe's Coffee is looking like a smart investment.
So smart, in fact, that a man in an Armani suit comes to town and makes it known that he will pay $150 for someone's share in Joe's Coffee. Some shareholders are desparate for cash to buy crystal meth, and figure they'd rather take a $50 profit right now that wait 6 years for all their money to come back. Others think their shares are worth more than that, so they wait until he offers $200 per share. Eventually Mr. Armani buys 51 shares of the company, and now that he has a majority of the votes as to how the company is run, he fires Joe as CEO, and exploits minimum wage workers to greatly increase the company's profit.
As more and more businesses sell little parts of ownership in this fashion, a bunch of guys in suits decide they're going to buy a big building in New York and make it a place where they can all get together and buy and sell these shares all day long. Everybody loved to trade stories about different things that were happening that would affect how much money the different companies would make. As this news came out, people changed how much they were willing to pay for the different stocks. And they all lived happily ever after, until enery prices went through the roof and nobody could afford to deliver coffee beans to Joe's shops anymore, they couldn't sell any coffee, and the stock price went way down. Then they threw themselves off buildings.
The end.
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yayyyyy!
again, again!
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Well-done, carlos, in the same manner as Jesus you have said what I was trying to say in a story so it was a thousand times better toward explaining.
Free-market capitalism works superbly on small scales, the bigger it gets and the further it gets from whatever innovations created the successes at first, the less it works and the less it resembles itself and its original values.
Somebody's gotta be standing there, unpurchasable and with strong pimp hand, to smack it down when that starts happening and we start spiraling toward mere profiteering and the economic process eating its own tail. Which is what I believe is happening now.
I can really only think of three pimps possibly large enough to that task: religion, the military and government bureaucracy... and as much as we don't like standing in line at the DMV, outta those three, I'll choose government bureaucracy every day and twice on Friday night.
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Damn, I suck at splitting threads - I somehow managed for it to be in backward order posting wise and am trying to fix the title of the thread for more than just the title on the main page and first post.
Edit: Okay the order is right, except the first post, which I can't change (sorry Lprkn) - I have no idea why the title in wrong in all but the first post, and can't figure out how to fix it. Damn.
Anyway, back on track, as I said in that other thread:
A-CAP, please tell us practical, actual suggestions we might sort-of comprehend of "how to avoid dying at our jobs." I think we can all agree that we don't want to die at our jobs, right? I mean, we have a fairly reasonable common ground that none of us want to die before we retire, if at all possible, right? An across the board desire to avoid suffering is a good place to start this right, I think. Because I seriously, seriously want to know.
Seriously, please help.
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Bill Hicks always taught me that the market is fake, is this not true?
Seriously though, a much more important thing: I just graduated and am moving to Boulder/Denver in a couple weeks
Holy shit dude, if you do that we should have a mini-Achecon. I live in the Denver metro area and can easily make it up to Boulder.
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95% of the people who are looking for work are employed. As I understand it, there is a certain percentage of people who are not working and are no longer seeking work. Is this number measured anywhere?
Re-reading, post split. Yes, this is correct, the unemployment rate only counts people who are looking for work. So if you're a stay-at-home mom, on disability, or have the depression from getting turned down for every job and have just stopped looking, you're not in there.
Is this measured anywhere? Shit, I don't know.
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Re-reading, post split. Yes, this is correct, the unemployment rate only counts people who are looking for work. So if you're a stay-at-home mom, on disability, or have the depression from getting turned down for every job and have just stopped looking, you're not in there.
Is this measured anywhere? Shit, I don't know.
Yes. The BLS spends a lot of your money on people who collect this data. Reports that are boring even to me can be found on their website.
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Yes. The BLS spends a lot of your money on people who collect this data. Reports that are boring even to me can be found on their website.
So, how fucked are things, potentially?
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Holy shit dude, if you do that we should have a mini-Achecon. I live in the Denver metro area and can easily make it up to Boulder.
Yeah, for sure. I am probably only going to be there for a couple months, but I also have I friend in Denver who I will probably hang out with. So yeah... we gotta do this before summer but after I accomplish basic things like getting a job, etc.
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So for someone like me, about to enter her 30's , with lots of savings, but no investments or stocks is it worthwhile to buy now? Whats the best thing to do with my savings? A friend who put a lot of study into the Canadian side thinks gold is honestly the best way to go. True?
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Yeah, for sure. I am probably only going to be there for a couple months, but I also have I friend in Denver who I will probably hang out with. So yeah... we gotta do this before summer but after I accomplish basic things like getting a job, etc.
I'd like to take another opportunity to say that if any of y'all drop through the Pacific Northwest and specifically Portland, I will show you a good time that I can almost promise will not end up with anyone going to jail.
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So for someone like me, about to enter her 30's , with lots of savings, but no investments or stocks is it worthwhile to buy now? Whats the best thing to do with my savings? A friend who put a lot of study into the Canadian side thinks gold is honestly the best way to go. True?
Gold is almost always a good investment for mid-to-long termers, and particularly when economies are sluggish. I put a lot of my investiments into gold and metals production a while ago.
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I have never understood why gold is a good investment. I mean, if the economy was rotten, why would anyone want to buy any gold that I have? They can't eat it, or burn it to keep warm. What am I missing?
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I have never understood why gold is a good investment. I mean, if the economy was rotten, why would anyone want to buy any gold that I have? They can't eat it, or burn it to keep warm. What am I missing?
I think the theory is that gold is a medium of exchange that will retain its value even in a severe social crisis. If there's a civil war or hyper-inflation or some such, people will still place a certain value on gold that they may not continue to place on government backed pieces of green paper. When the price of gold goes up, it's a sign that things are getting more turbulent in the world.
Of course, when things get even worse, gold becomes valueless on only things that you can eat, burn, wear or screw have value.
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Yeah, gold is just valuable because there is a very definite limit to how much of it there is so it can't suffer from inflation but since it's not actually usable for anything it doesn't fluctuate the way, say, oil does.
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I have never understood why gold is a good investment. I mean, if the economy was rotten, why would anyone want to buy any gold that I have? They can't eat it, or burn it to keep warm. What am I missing?
Scarcity drives value in this world. Water, the most "valuable" thing I can think of, is given to me basically for free whenever I use a sink, people in cities open up fire hydrants and just let it gush into the street. Diamonds on the other hand have a very limited industrial utility but people kill for them, fight wars for them.
In the best economic conditions, there is full faith in paper currency and no one cares to carry around hunks of metal. In the worst economic conditions, government fiat currency has an inherent risk of inflation.
There has never been a time in human history when civilization did not value gold over other things. It is a concentrated material of wealth that you can look at and touch and give to people for other things.
In short its a hedge against inflation and there is only a finite amount of gold going around, God isn't making any more of it.
EDIT: Doc and I posted at the same time and he said it in fewer words. Also, I own stock in gold mines.
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Yeah, going for gold is kind of... betting that the world will MOSTLY collapse but not fully.
It is my instinct to reckon that things'll either stay pretty much like this or go back to the Dark Ages... people are too used to this general sort of life and unless things completely go in the tank, people'll figure out a way to keep the current mess going.
I reckon there'll be a lotta "survivalists" happy that their little gold rock beats money paper... until scissors quickly beats both. Here's hoping a space ship'll have gotten me by then... interesting as it sounds, I basically don't wanna hang out and watch up close.
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More to the diamonds thing than scarcity, though, eh A-Cap?
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Yeah, going for gold is kind of... betting that the world will MOSTLY collapse but not fully.
That makes sense. I guess I usually worry most about the total collapse. The world where, like, they don't manufacture contact lens solution and organic dog kibble anymore, and such.
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Yeah, gold is just valuable because there is a very definite limit to how much of it there is so it can't suffer from inflation but since it's not actually usable for anything it doesn't fluctuate the way, say, oil does.
This isn't actually true. it's an integral component of these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1), and I think we all agree the world would be poorer for their loss. Plus lots of electronics use it, and that stupid schnapps, or whatever it is.
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Ah, the 'shlager. We had a friend who couldn't believe they'd put REAL GOLD IN THERE, to which another friend classically responded, "Well, you know, if you learn to shit JUST RIGHT, you can get it all back."
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That garbage and champagne are my two most hated alcohol beverages.
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I don't think I've ever had any of that shit, but I'm not sure it would beat out Boone's Farm, Keystone, Mike's hard lemonade, blackberry brandy, Zima, PBR, Schmidt, or Bud*.
*That's just for A-Cap, because I'm in that sort of mood.
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All of those things are drinkable though. Well I have never had zima or MH lemonade, but I am sure they are better. I don't really like schnapps too much in general though.
The worst thing I have ever drank is nighttrain or whatever that shit is called. MD20/20 is drinkable, so is boones farm. That stuff is impossible. Champagne is still the worst though, I can not have more than a glass of that stuff without throwing up, passing out and being hungover for at least 2 days. No idea why.
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I'd forgotten the electronics application, but we're hardly tearing through gold making cars and computers the way we go through oil, the primary use is still ornamental. I'd argue the schnapps is just a variation on this since the schnapps doesn't need the gold to taste good but the addition of gold makes it more desirable (to people who think 3k is a pretty good price for wine).
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Nah man, the stuff we are talking about is kind of cheap. Like the same as all schnapps I think. There are just gold slivers in it.
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I don't think I've ever had any of that shit, but I'm not sure it would beat out Boone's Farm, Keystone, Mike's hard lemonade, blackberry brandy, Zima, PBR, Schmidt, or Bud*.
*That's just for A-Cap, because I'm in that sort of mood.
My employer makes quality beverages. Or at least I believed that until we started making Clamato + Bud cans
MD2020 is not drinkable. Youre insane.
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Sorry AC. I don't find anything made by Budweiser to be particularly good compared to everything else I could drink instead.
All Malt Liquors, 20/20. Boones, Night Train are nasty. But they are meant to be utilized for effect, not aesthetics. So, yeah, maybe better than those.
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I don't know, what about Coors or Miller or Keystone or...
The weirdest thing in the world to me is people who really, really think that Bud Light is a good beer and talk bad about someone drinking a Coors product or something. Like, I'll drink Bud without any pride or shame. These people put pride in Bud Light (that is the commercial beer I have seen this with the most).
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I think all the beer tastes like something I would not like to taste again. Unless I'm bowling. If I'm bowling, there has to be a bigass thing of bacon-chili-cheese-fries and a pitcher of beer OH HELLS YES.
But I haven't been bowling in years.
Worst cocktail I ever made... The Dr. Peppermint Schnapps. I just told you its recipe. I love sweet shit, but not in my bev. The only way it could've been worse is if I used Jones Candy Cane soda instead of Dr. Pepper.
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Worst cocktail I ever made... The Dr. Peppermint Schnapps. I just told you its recipe. I love sweet shit, but not in my bev. The only way it could've been worse is if I used Jones Candy Cane soda instead of Dr. Pepper.
Oh sweet Christ, does that ever sound like a mistake. Yuck!
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All of those things are drinkable though. Well I have never had zima or MH lemonade, but I am sure they are better. I don't really like schnapps too much in general though.
The worst thing I have ever drank is nighttrain or whatever that shit is called. MD20/20 is drinkable, so is boones farm. That stuff is impossible. Champagne is still the worst though, I can not have more than a glass of that stuff without throwing up, passing out and being hungover for at least 2 days. No idea why.
Yeah see, your thing with the champagne is my thing with the malt beverages. If I drink two or more MHLs, I will have a headache for like a week.
Worst cocktail I ever made... The Dr. Peppermint Schnapps.
Best name ever, though - so you get lots of credit for that.
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Worst cocktail I ever made... The Dr. Peppermint Schnapps. I just told you its recipe. I love sweet shit, but not in my bev. The only way it could've been worse is if I used Jones Candy Cane soda instead of Dr. Pepper.
Best name ever, though - so you get lots of credit for that.
Particularly if it comes in tiny cans.
I'm going to ignore all the blasphemy being spoken against the greatest beverage/foodstuff ever. The world of beer is deep and wide. If you haven't found a beer you like, you haven't looked hard enough. This is understandable if you've only ever looked in supermarkets or whatever unnaturalness is visited on people in states where you have to beg the government for your beer.
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So for someone like me, about to enter her 30's , with lots of savings, but no investments or stocks is it worthwhile to buy now? Whats the best thing to do with my savings? A friend who put a lot of study into the Canadian side thinks gold is honestly the best way to go. True?
Well, when the economy/stock market is in the shitter, that's actually a very good time to buy & hold. The problem, though, is calling the bottom. If you buy stocks then they go down the next day, you invariably feel like a moron. (This happens pretty much every time I buy a stock.)
I am very fond of the so-called Coffeehouse Portfolio, in which you plunk 40% of your money in a bond fund, and 10% in each of six different stock funds.
http://www.etftopics.com/coffeehouse-etf-portfolio/
That's great if you're setting up a 401K or otherwise have a bunch of money to play with. For smaller sums, I am very fond of Direct Stock Purchase Plans combined with Dividend Reinvestment Plans. You can buy shares in relatively small amounts, usually with no fees (you pay a fee when you sell), and your dividends are automatically reinvested. So even if you only have a couple hundred bucks a year to invest, you can build up a little something over time.
http://www.fool.com/School/DRIPs.htm
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I am late to this particular thread. A few years back, on another message board, someone said "I don't understand the stock market, someone explain it to me like you'd explain it to a third-grader," and me and my MBA wrote this piece, which was very well received. Apologies for length.
[brilliant stuff]
I am even later, but I wanted to say how awesome that explanation is. My dad teaches economics to high school students. Can I give him a copy of that and let him read it to his class? I think I would have to change the reference to crystal meth but the rest of it would be a great intro for them.
Dad has a couple stories like this, with super-simplified examples (my favorite describes how the cash economy evolved vis-a-vis an Old West setting and a villain named Black Bart), but I don't think he has one for the stock market.
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Can I give him a copy of that and let him read it to his class?
As long as he introduces it by saying "This was written by the Mayor of Banana Town," sure.
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Oh God, that was funny. A can for the Mayor of Banana Town.
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As long as he introduces it by saying "This was written by the Mayor of Banana Town," sure.
I have $20 waiting if this explanation, with the introduction, makes it onto YouTube.
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I'm going to ignore all the blasphemy being spoken against the greatest beverage/foodstuff ever. The world of beer is deep and wide. If you haven't found a beer you like, you haven't looked hard enough. This is understandable if you've only ever looked in supermarkets or whatever unnaturalness is visited on people in states where you have to beg the government for your beer.
I know it's comforting to assume that but it's a bit like saying "if you don't like eggplants it's because you haven't had one that's fresh enough yet." I've had the freshest goddamn eggplants humanly possible and I've had at least a half dozen beers that people whose opinions on the subject I trust told me were the best beers available on a normal human's drinking budget and I didn't like either.
I've had good beer and I've had bad beer and in a few cases I could tell the difference but I didn't like either. The difference was that my reaction to bad beer was "Oh sweet lord do people actually drink this shit?" and my reaction to good beer is "egh, someone might like this but not me." (The same has happened with bad and good coffee.) That said, the best reaction I've had to any alcoholic beverage is "this stuff would be pretty good if it weren't for the taste of alcohol" so maybe that's skewing my view. To me, alcohol and coffee kind of kick aside other flavors and start pissing on them even if the alcohol or coffee is in low concentration, so it's not an issue of "finding the right one".
This is the post where I respond to things people said a couple weeks ago. Hi!
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what I don't get is, the only beer I think is any good is Miller High Life. that shit is delicious. People say "oh, if you think that is good, you'll love (something they have), it's like that but not shitty"
and then they give me something that tastes fuck*ng horrible.
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From my personal experience, the main reason a person doesn't like alcohol/beer is that they haven't drank enough of it. Kind of like how if you hang out in a stockyard, you eventually can't smell it anymore. You stick around long enough, you're bound to start to appreciate the funky aroma.
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From my personal experience, the main reason a person doesn't like alcohol/beer is that they haven't drank enough of it. Kind of like how if you hang out in a stockyard, you eventually can't smell it anymore. You stick around long enough, you're bound to start to appreciate the funky aroma.
This does not explain non-alchoholic beer.
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This does not explain non-alchoholic beer.
Nothing does.
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This does not explain non-alchoholic beer.
Alcoholics Anonymous.
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"this stuff would be pretty good if it weren't for the taste of alcohol"
Speaking from experience, this is the part you can get used to with practice. Although if you don't take to it naturally I'm not sure why you'd bother. Why take up an expensive fattening hobby that you're perfectly happy without?
As far as beer, I have had lots of really good, freshly made, brewpub beer, over many years of trying. I can tell the difference between something really tasty and something the Technical Staff derides as "crowd-pleasing ale." I know which kinds I like better than others. But I've still never, ever had the desire to drink a whole glass of it. It really is possible to just not particularly care for the stuff.
Oh and Hi Ben!
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Speaking from experience, this is the part you can get used to with practice. Although if you don't take to it naturally I'm not sure why you'd bother. Why take up an expensive fattening hobby that you're perfectly happy without?
My thoughts exactly. I hate beer, I hate wine, and I don't enjoy mixed drinks enough to justify their cost so I just stick with soda most of the time.
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Sadly, I have basically the same feeling about sushi. Sometimes I wonder if my tastes in food and beverage will ever, you know, grow up.
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Sadly, I have basically the same feeling about sushi. Sometimes I wonder if my tastes in food and beverage will ever, you know, grow up.
If all you can stomach are vienna weinies, cream of wheat, and breast milk, you might have something to worry about. Fortunately, I've seen that picture of you and Paul eating humongous sandwiches - so you're probably OK. My lady eats Italian when she's feeling like something exotic. I have to sneak out like Rachael Ray's husband to get me some Pakistani or sushi eats.
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sushi...
I don't know. It's just raw giraffe and rice. I guess I like the flavors of things I'm eating to be stronger? I was expecting something I'd either love or hate, not... a little roll that tastes pretty good I guess. I mean, I like it, but I don't know if I 20$ like it.
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Rachael Ray's husband is actually sneaking out to foot-worship a dominatrix, though.
C'mon, I glance at gossip tabs when I check-out and I fully admit it.
Also:
Have you tried vegetable or egg sushi, Vee? The seafood component is what is disgusting about sushi but when you take that out, it is lovely light vegetarian fare. Sweet rice and veggies with a little soy sauce and wasabi, y'know?
Scallions, carrot, cucumber, avocado and some sesame seeds in sweet rice and a chewy lightly-salty wrapping.
It's awesome when you're rid of the nasty sea bugs and such.
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giraffe sushi I find "gross" when prepared poorly and "a little boring for the price, not otherwise too bad" when done well. If it weren't so expensive I might enjoy giraffe sushi more, but I don't consider it really worth the money for the enjoyment I get.
However, smets is absolutely correct about vegetable sushi. Avocado rolls are both cheaper and tastier than the raw-giraffe kind tends to be, and as a plus you can get it pretty much anywhere without fear of food poisoning. There's an "Oriental Express" lunch truck near my campus that does mediocre almost-everything but shockingly awesome avocado rolls.
Avocado rolls are incidentally one of the few examples I've had of a turnaround on "I don't like that ingredient". I'm not generally keen on avocado products, but avocado rolls are great and I've come to terms with fresh guacamole as a result. (Cheap guacamole from a plastic tube, not so much.)
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I am pretty much anti-seafood across the board with only a few exceptions. Had I been intended to eat waterspiders and giraffe, I am entirely certain that I would've been born as a shark or as Aquaman or something.
I grew up in the mountains along a heavily polluted river, whatever giraffe-based nutrients I lack, I'll take in pill form, thank you very much.
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giraffe sushi - at lot more than beer now after the microbrew revolution, I feel confident in saying that many people might not like it because they've never had it really good.
But again, why worry? It's expensive, it might give you parasites, and since really good sushi is so hard to get, having a taste for it will mostly result in thwarted longings and dissatisfaction. Who needs it?
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I am pretty much anti-seafood across the board with only a few exceptions.
This is also the case for me; being Jewish means most of the weirder stuff isn't even on the metaphorical table to be considered for the literal table, and the smell of salmon steaks or tuna steaks makes me queasy. (Not in a "this is rotten food" way, in a "this is a food scent I personally am reacting poorly to" way.) giraffe and chips is tasty, though, and good sushi is good stuff but not worth the price to me.
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Canned tuna that might-as-well be chicken salad, I will dig on now and again and that is pretty much exactly it.
I am a land creature, I eat land things... cow, flightless birds, pig but only for breakfast.
It works for me. I am a land thing, I eat land things.
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Oh yeah, definitely.
Don't mistake this as my not understanding that pickiness is a blessing. It totally is.
But... as long as I have the luxury, I will definitely make use of that luxury.
My grandfather was a very money-conscious man, having been through the depression and world war two and so on... but he always said:
"The last thing you skimp on is food... if you've got the money to be frivolous about just one thing, be frivolous about the most basic thing, the thing you have to do three times a day no matter what. Take the bus, get a second job, cancel the cable but if you can hack it at all, get a good steak once in a while."
Grandpa C was an odd man in a lot of ways but, dammit, he was right about food.
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I love sea food. Always have, always will. I am picky about basically everything else, but giraffe gets the Daniel Stamp of Approval.
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See, I've tried egg and vegetable sushi, but it hits that kind of "it's okay; I'm not thrilled" place for me. I think I don't like the coldness of it, if that makes any sense? I mean, if I'm starving on a desert island I'd eat it, but it's nothing I'd actually make an effort to search out.
Sushi rice, on the other hand, is grelicious. My Japanese department in college held sushi parties every semester, and I'd traditionally just get a big plate of rice and chow down.
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I love sushi, but I always add either spicy mayo or wasabi and soy sauce to it to bump up the flavour a bit.
Surprisingly, for being pretty land-locked (other than the big lake, which is not good for giraffeing) Chicago has pretty decent sushi. Not like the coasts, but pretty good anyway.
I could seriously eat sushi 3-4 times a week. I actually typed "34 times a week" at first and almost left it there, because it's probably somewhat accurate.
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Absolutely, half the point of sushi is the excuse to ingest large amounts of wasabi and soy sauce.
...I just assumed that a given.
If it was socially acceptable to just order a big bowl of sticky-rice with wasabi and soy sauce slathered all over it, that is certainly what I would order at Japanese places but... you can't, so I get three vegetable rolls and it is close enough.
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Oh dear. See, this is what I mean that most people have probably never had decent sushi. There is no way to appreciate the subtle flavors of different giraffe if you cover it with wasabi and soy sauce. But if you'd never had giraffe with any subtle flavor to it, of course you'd think that that's the thing to do.
Note: Best topic-wandering ever.
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Let us not forget "if you have tried giraffe with subtle flavours and hated the hell out of them".
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I've never been big on sushi but I've only tried it a couple of times and not at good places. It's generally not the giraffe I mind, it's that the rice tends to be too sticky and the sea-weed smell kind of puts me off. These are indications I'm at the wrong place I think. I also don't like soy sauce but according to Wombat I guess that's a good thing?
There's a fairly high end sushi joint near me actually that I do need to try one day, just need a sushi-type person to try it with.
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The rice is supposed to be sticky, it has to stick together. You just have to get used to it as a whole different take on rice. What it should not be is too sweet - at a crummy place it will usually be too sweet to make up for the lack of any other flavors. That's in the US, anyway - I do not want it to seem that I pretend to have any firsthand knowledge of the lesser sushi joints of the Down Under region.
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Yeah pretty much the same (I think, anyway), I just find the taste of the rice distracting so I don't go in much for the rest of the dish.
I shall persevere.
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...damn, this is making me really want some sushi.
The real things I learned when I got sushi were this:
-yes, those prices look high, but you don't just get one roll, you get 4. You and your friend are ordering more than you want, no matter what you think
-yes, all of your friends have fake IDs, and are totally ballsy enough to order beers. I thought people were more cautious about things like this?
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Dammit, this has made me realize that I haven't had happy hour $1 sushi in months. That is just wrong. I needs me some yellowtail.
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I am pretty much anti-seafood across the board with only a few exceptions. Had I been intended to eat waterspiders and giraffe, I am entirely certain that I would've been born as a shark or as Aquaman or something.
Can'd for "waterspiders". Although personally my favorite pejorative term for crustaceans is "sea bugs".
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Can'd for "waterspiders". Although personally my favorite pejorative term for crustaceans is "sea bugs".
I have a friend who won't eat shrimp or lobster and refers to them as the 'cockroach of the sea'.
As far as sushi goes: It's awesome. I am looking for a job in the DC/Maryland area right now and as soon as I get one I am going to make sure that Wombat and the Technical Staff have a big sushi dinner with me and the wife because Wombat gets it.
Sushi rice is special, it's the shortgrain glutinous rice and has to stick together. Sushi rice is traditionally flavored with Sweet Sake and Mirin as well, that's what gives it that delicious, subtle flavor.
I love the Hamachi (Yellowtail), the Big Eye Tuna, and Unagi. I especially like Ika (squid) and we both love the Spicy Tuna, which is a dressed raw tuna, spicy dressing and Tobikko, which is flying giraffe roe. I like all kinds of roe on sushi too.
If you have a health food store or a good asian store nearby, you can get the sheets of Nori, the seaweed, and they make a really tasty snack. My kids love eating seaweed sheets.
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My kids love eating seaweed sheets.
Jehosephat. I can't even get my kid to eat cheese. It is awesome that your kids will try eating "unusual" (to Americans) food like that. Tick that off on the list of Ways in which Your Children Rock.
And yes, I did just use the word "jehosephat" without irony. I do this often in speech, because apparently I'm Elijah Bailey? But I think this is the first time I've actually typed it out. It's kind of a weird feeling, wondering how to spell this word I use daily. [/navel-gazing]
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As far as sushi goes: It's awesome. I am looking for a job in the DC/Maryland area right now and as soon as I get one I am going to make sure that Wombat and the Technical Staff have a big sushi dinner with me and the wife because Wombat gets it.
Yes! Keeping my fingers crossed!
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Ive had a few drinks with a group of guys who are into economics (professors, students) and we're all pretty worried about the current state of the US economy.
Pete Boettke, The Moses of my economic religion believes that we are basically standing on a cliff of an economic crisis and have been for years. Capitalism can only do so much when its bridled by government, and as a result, whenever government regulation outpaces capitalist advances, we move closer to that precipice of depression. Ben Bernanke has been fuck*ng us for months and I think americans should take notice of the government stimulus that will ultimately push us over the cliff. Look at it like this - If you had cancer and all the doctors [high educated, well meaning people] did was treat the symptoms, the cancer would grow and become more lethal. That is what has happened for the past decades. We are going to experience some huge hits. This is my prediction and the prediction of some very well educated people. However, this is the healthiest way to go. Just like the cancer patient, sometimes its easier to endure the effects of chemo to come out healthier.
I predict a US recession.
I predict that ethanol will be the wave of the next decades, but Geothermal energy energy will be the wave of the next millennium.
The problems occur when government thinks it knows whats best. Well, the Soviet Union though it knew what was best too.
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I dunno there, pard, all this mortgage fiasco seems the product of Reagan-Bush deregulation, not over-regulation to me.
Oversight that used to prevent this kind of massive-scale predatory lending got slowly taken away and... surprise surprise... the bottom dropped out.
The analogy seems to be a lot closer to... a bunch of doctors ignored everything kinda obvious about smoking so that they could take tons of money to tell people about pleasing feelings in their T-Zones and now they're acting all surprised when we're coughing up chunks of blood.
The doctors didn't care about the consequences, they were rakin' in the money in the short term, damn the long-term consequences.
Regulation and economic protectionism, please, a lot of it and make it snappy. We've let ourselves become a colony state of our own upper class, our very own Banana Republic.
But we're too busy just trying to survive than to wake up and fight back, culturally and economically.
Which was the plan, of course. Of course.
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1. I am suspicious anytime someone suggests a blanket solution is a panacea. "Deregulation will solve all our problems" or "More regulation will protect people's rights" seems a little facile to me. Having worked as a regulator for many years, and having spent lots of time thinking about and drafting regulations, I've seen cases where both are true. Some activities need regulating, others don't. Neither AC nor LFM cites specific examples to support their position. I believe both could, which supports my position that regulation is best addressed on a case-by-case basis.
2. One flaw with AC's position is that it's based on the assumption that what's good for business/the economy is good for society as a whole. It's hard to argue against the idea that if we completely deregulated the business world and allowed them to do whatever they wanted, however they wanted then businesses would be more profitable. However, would this make our lives better? Would it make for a better, more civilized, humane, just society? I don't know.
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Nuts to ethanol. Safe, reliable, beautiful nuclear power. Semi-plentiful plutonium powering breeder reactors that generate power and golden U-235 for future generations. Nuts to Yucca mountain. We weren't using that mountain anyway. Nuts to corn growers. Nuclear power. It feeds the electrolysis that feeds the hydrogen economy of the future. Nuclear power. Greenpeace loves it, and now your family can too. Nuclear power. Now that's good eatin'!
Why stop there?
I support removing regulations from the airline industry while also removing bailouts and bankruptcy protection from the airline industry.
No health care plan is good enough that doesn't provide incentives for doctors to become primary care providers and not specialists.
Nuts to emergency rooms. If a health care system only treats emergencies, every problem will eventually be an emergency.
The annual farm bill must die.
NASA is a hole, and if you say that $18 billion annually is not a very big hole, you are no judge of holes.
We do not need this many nukes, and it is both dangerous and expensive to put off dismantling them.
The armed forces do not need attack jets, they need vests, boots, helmets, and better food.
You won't get armed forces recruitment numbers up until you can tell young Americans what they'll be dying for in 25 words or less without obvious lies.
The auto and oil industries will make out like bandits when oil actually starts running out. Only after they have ridden people as hard as they can will they have an incentive to do the actual research for alternative energy, and when they introduce fully realized solutions, they will once again make out like bandits. It is in the public interest for the US Government to pour money into this research and get working solutions in advance of a crisis, but the world will not collapse either way.
As long as U.S. Representatives are paid so little and provided so little money for staff, they will be at the mercy of lobbyists who are much better paid and better funded.
Help! I can't stop.
The only thing we have to fear is the Depression itself. ...and Hitler.
If terror makes you remove your own liberty, terrorists win. If terrorists are too afraid to terrorize, terror wins, but the good kind of terror this time.
NAFTA did not prepare the workers of tomorrow for the challenges of today.
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1. I am suspicious anytime someone suggests a blanket solution is a panacea. "Deregulation will solve all our problems" or "More regulation will protect people's rights" seems a little facile to me.
Thankyou AW for saying very precisely what I would have said very rudely.
I am not entirely sure if Pedro is joking about nuclear power but I think it is the fuck*ng Bomb (*rimshot*). The out of sight, out of mind worldview that holds it is better to pump radioactive particles into our atmosphere and then forget about them rather than bury (a much smaller but more radioactive) quantity of material in a lead lined bunker reveals a truly pitiful aspect of the human condition.
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The out of sight, out of mind worldview that holds it is better to pump radioactive particles into our atmosphere and then forget about them rather than bury (a much smaller but more radioactive) quantity of material in a lead lined bunker reveals a truly pitiful aspect of the human condition.
I had never heard of people wanting to vent the stuff into the atmosphere. Except possibly for terrorist people. That's crazy-go-nuts.
But yeah, I totally think we should be using nuclear power a lot and hiding our shame in Yucca Mountain.
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I had never heard of people wanting to vent the stuff into the atmosphere. Except possibly for terrorist people. That's crazy-go-nuts.
Nah, I mean coal plants and similar that just pump junk into the atmos. When I said what they pump out is radioactive I guess that's an exageration. I mean, it's true but not in the long term way most people would think of.
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Thankyou AW for saying very precisely what I would have said very rudely.
I am not entirely sure if Pedro is joking about nuclear power but I think it is the fuck*ng Bomb (*rimshot*). The out of sight, out of mind worldview that holds it is better to pump radioactive particles into our atmosphere and then forget about them rather than bury (a much smaller but more radioactive) quantity of material in a lead lined bunker reveals a truly pitiful aspect of the human condition.
Also, Oz is the Saudi Arabia of uranium mining (http://www.uic.com.au/ozuran.htm) ;)
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I KNOW! So perfect! Unfortunately we just voted in a government that has basically promised not to set up any more nuclear power stations. I voted for the bastards on the basis of foreign policy but I just kick myself everytime I think of that. I have to figure we'll get it eventually though, if only for purely economic reasons.
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I KNOW! So perfect! Unfortunately we just voted in a government that has basically promised not to set up any more nuclear power stations. I voted for the bastards on the basis of foreign policy but I just kick myself everytime I think of that. I have to figure we'll get it eventually though, if only for purely economic reasons.
"Come for the good foreign policy. Stay for the terrible domestic policy."
That's pretty much the exact opposite of how we elect presidents in the US.
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So, this is the stock market topic...
I really, really, REALLY want to short Chipotle (symbol: CMG). Over the past five years or so, I've had a pretty good gut feeling when a stock is overvalued, but I rarely take advantage of it. There's a lot of due diligence to be done before I pull the trigger on something like this. But still, even though I love burritos, a $3.8 BILLION dollar market cap for a fuckin' chain of burrito stands? Seriously?
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as long as the topic is about having the understanding level of a third grader...
how can it ever be a good way to make money to sell your stock for less than what people are normally paying for it?
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Short selling is something that almost feels like it should be illegal, like if it didn't have a term and a button on Ameritrade that let you do it, it was something that could get you arrested for fraud. Its similarity to the Don't Pass line in craps just reemphasizes the observation I initially made about the stock market in the fifth grade, which is that it was just another kind of gambling.
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Along that same thread, there is the man who made $3-4 billion for himself in one day by better against the housing market before the sub-prime collapse. http://www.financialnews-us.com/?page=ushome&contentid=2349571152
Now I'm not saying this should be illegal, or regulated more, but something about it just seems wrong to me. On a gut level. On another level I feel like patting the guy on the back.
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Good article, Trout.
I disagree with mayor's valuation of CMG. I do not like burritos, but I do like companies that have perpetual growth every quarter and almost zero debt while swimming in cash. When compared side by side to sector competitors, its a very strong company. Plus you'd be shorting shares at over a 100 a pop when some analysts see it going up another 50 in the next couple months. Do you trade in options? That might be a less risky way to test your feeling.
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OK, I looked up "selling short," and discovered that I was completely misunderstanding what it meant.
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OK, I looked up "selling short," and discovered that I was completely misunderstanding what it meant.
Were you confusing it with stopping short? Because that's a pretty good move.
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YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP SHORT WITH MY WIFE!?
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</ridiculous Italian accent-o>
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I used to think selling short was pretty easy, so I faked up a scenario where I shorted the ever loving crap out of SCO. Their stock price went up just a little bit before it went down down down as expected. That little uptick was enough to wipe out my insurance buffer, so I never would have seen profit on it.
Lesson: predicting what's going to happen isn't good enough. You also need to know when, and what will happen between now and then.
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See, the housing market is the exact kind of situation I'm talking about. I've thought for at least a couple years, "Someone's going to take a bath on this shit," and if I'd have applied myself perhaps I'd have shorted Countrywide and their ilk.
Good points, A-CAP, and that's the kind of research I just haven't done yet and would need to do before actually making a commitment. They just put out a quarterly earnings announcement of only 3 cents/share (vs. 19 cents/share for the same quarter last year), and the stock hasn't taken a severe beating today, which I take to mean it wasn't unexpected.
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See, the housing market is the exact kind of situation I'm talking about. I've thought for at least a couple years, "Someone's going to take a bath on this shit," and if I'd have applied myself perhaps I'd have shorted Countrywide and their ilk.
I sort of did the next best thing. A couple years ago, when the housing bubble was accelerating with no end in sight, the wife and I were seriously talking about getting into the market (buying our first). The thing is - we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where you need to get a jumbo loan to get a dump, and a line of credit on the side to cover the down payment, etc etc. So as we studied and talked to people and so forth, it became apparent that due to my wife being a teacher, and neither of us having particularly amazing credit - the answer seemed to be to get into a loan where you just pay the interest on the principal (no money down). The theory, as explained to us by casually confident mortgage broker types, is that after the market carries the house up for a while you sell and use the proceeds as a down payment on a house with a fixed rate. Oh yeah - this was one of those shorter term adjustable rate deals. The brokers would work it out for us on paper and show how it all added up. We'd be crazy not to do it! Really! Its a sure thing! Everyone's doing it!
The thing is, I have had many talks with my Dad about what life was like in the days of double-digit inflation. I also was a front seat witness to the tech bubble in 2000/2001 (though thankfully wasn't directly affected by it). It all sounded way too familiar. So I rent. And stick a ridiculous amount of money into IRAs/401Ks. And pay down my damn consumer debt. So we don't own a home. And every day, these days, I thank God for a little foresight and, perhaps, the first glimmerings of wisdom. Because there are a lot of houses for sale around me at the moment, and a sad story behind each of them.
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now, on the other hand, you can buy properties for pennies on the dollar.
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Houses that I actually want to buy are staying in that depressing "Just out of reach of the price range that is just out of reach of what I can actually afford" price range. The people who own those homes need to buy more SUVs, PWCs, ATVs, and go snowboarding. A lot.
Someday I'll have patience, but it won't be soon enough.
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Hey, remember back in March when I said I wanted to short Chipotle (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,4231.msg116731.html#msg116731), which at the time was like $110 a share?
Today it's below $88. So if I'd shorted 200 shares then, I'd be looking at a good four grand in free fuckin' money.
Too bad I'm such a wuss. Also, A-CAP, you suck (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,4231.msg116750.html#msg116750).
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Yea seriously, Chipotle really dropped the ball, good call on your part.
If anyone wants a free stock tip, however, might i suggest the gasoline ETF, Amex symbol UGA. You can also buy oil with USO. Wish I had some more spare cash for these guys.
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Hey, A-Cap, want to earn very little money writing for this guy instead of none at all writing here?
http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/wrg/687394711.html (http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/wrg/687394711.html)
Reply to: gigs-687394711@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-05-19, 3:17PM HST
I am launching an online magazine with a working title of Amateur Economists in July 2008. I am looking for writers and bloggers in any of the following areas:
- Business and Finance
- Environment
- Religion and Morality/Ethics
- Education
- U.S. Economy
- World Economy
- Politics
- Science and Technology
- Literature and Art
- Society and Culture
- Any other Economics-related topics you enjoy (which really can encompass a myriad of things)
Article must be 500-750 words; blogs 300-400 words. In addition to a sample of your writing, please also mention what topic(s) you would be interested in writing about for your article.
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: $50 per article; $25 per blog
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There is something very funny about a magazine called Amateur Economics paying people to write articles. So amateur that they don't understand the concept of amateur. That's awesome.
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well, no, see.
there would also be something funny about an Economics magazine expecting people to send in articles with no incentive.
So basically the whole magazine is funny.
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Hey, A-Cap, want to earn very little money writing for this guy instead of none at all writing here?
http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/wrg/687394711.html (http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/wrg/687394711.html)
Done and done. Thankya maam