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Tradewinds

Market Wizard
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Posts posted by Tradewinds

  2. Posted

    I personally do not care for the cheering crowds. I think it is in bad taste.

     

    I was surprised to see there were cheering crowds. I've never seen anything like that in the U.S. before. I think I understand what you are saying, and I would tend to agree. I immediately had to think that these people were acting exactly the same as the crowds who burn the U.S. flag in countries outside the U.S.

     

    I'm not against people being happy that he is dead, and expressing that, but we all need to set an example in our behavior. I think it's powerful to be able to know and say that we have a different standard of behavior.

  3. Posted

    i think you also forgot some the greatest mass murderers of the recent centuries as well, Mao and Stalin. Those who ideologically may have/possibly/we hope so, actually thought they were helping to relieve the gap between the rich and the poor.

     

    I think that it's common for people to think that violence can solve problems. Mass killing doesn't do much to motivate the general population. That's been proven over and over again. The human brain tends to influence people's behavior towards control, manipulation, intimidation and inflicting physical and emotional pain on others as a method to achieve goals. That's the default behavior in humans.

     

    Plus with a the evil v good, rich v poor comparisons - I guess Zuckerberg, Buffett, Gates.....that must mean they are evil....?

     

    No, I apologize if I gave the impression that I automatically think that rich people must be evil. I don't like to make automatic absolute associations, the key word being "absolute". Reality is a thousand shades of gray. It's not that there are not absolutes, there are. There are both absolutes and there are shades of gray.

     

    Also shouldn't we be concerned with average wealth - even on a relative scale, there are more people in the world who are wealthier than in the history of the world. Wealth is always going to a comparative relative measure, and yet so far the system seems to be working for the greatest number at present. Whats so wrong with that?

     

    It's not bad to be moving towards a better standard of living, if it's sustainable. It is better to have a relative increase in something good, if what caused the increase in relative good will also perpetuate goodness indefinitely. But it's absolutely critical to use the standard of perpetual goodness in the test of what is truly good.

     

    The communist ideology proposed that the communist system was the long term solution. But it's not. In practice, communism did not eliminate the rich upper class. And it kills motivation in the masses, because there is no motive to excel. There must be a reward to motivate people.

     

    Communism might argue that there will be a relative increase in the average standard of living. So the argument that relative increases in wealth are inherently good, isn't a rational train of thought. And if we are talking about average wealth, that is very problematic. The general public could actually be realizing a decrease in real income, while the average income per capita is going up. The income of the super rich could swing the average calculation up, even as the real income of everyone else is going down. For a real indication of how the average person is doing financially, the income of the rich must be excluded. This thread is about the rich getting richer. That implies a comparison of the rich to everyone else. So talking about average income, and then averaging in the rich people's income is a potential act of deception.

  5. Posted · Edited by Tradewinds

    To create something good that could perpetually go on into eternity, the whole system must either stay in balance, or be able to return to balance before a "point of no return" occurs. Dr. Bartlett makes the point that zero growth will happen sooner or later. But the question is, will it be forced on us, after the population gets so large that resources become threateningly scarce, or will humans regulate growth before the "point of no return" happens.

     

    High rates of reproduction played an important role in survival when the environment was very harsh, there was high attrition, and a small base population. But we are past that problem. Part of the population growth calculation is dependent upon whether the grandparents live long enough to see their grandchildren. If no more than two generations were alive at one time, and if each couple had two children, the growth rate would be zero. If a man and a woman have two children, those two children replace the two people that brought them into existence. That would be zero growth, IF the parents died before the children had children. But people are living longer.

     

    I think what is going on in the middle east, is related to this issue. The population is getting larger, but much of the population is not doing very well. So, at least part of the population is waging a conflict against the leaders. And the numbers of people who are frustrated are large enough to create a movement.

  6. Posted

    So what's the answer? Maybe aliens should invade and exterminate the genetically inferior beings. :rofl:

     

    we have enough humans on earth here who occasionally try this, it does not usually work over the long term. and is rather more counterproductive than helpful and/or effective

     

    Yes, both God and Hitler found that out the hard way. God used the great flood as the preferred extermination method, then made a promise to never do that again. God's extermination method was a kinder, gentler mass destruction. Drowning is more humane than the gas chamber.

     

    Both God and Hitler seemed to have similar goals with the mass extermination, but their plans didn't work out so well. So you are right.

     

    But the real issue is, "How do we solve this problem of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?" That question can't be addressed without addressing issues of human behavior, and good verses evil. So the topic of good verses evil is really what we are talking about here.

     

    I want to be on the side of good. I point out the really dark side as a contrast and comparison method that helps define the outer boundaries of the area within which to work in. Unfortunately there is a harsh reality that needs to be faced before a solution can be decided on.

     

    So what's the solution? We can discuss the "Why?" of the issue for eternity, and never come up with the solution or implement it.

  7. Posted

    If we are going to have a free society, everyone has to be allowed to fail or succeed on his own merits.

     

    The problem is, that many people who fail, tend to become counterproductive to society. Then these destructive people become a problem for everyone. There are consequences to the failure. And there are consequences to everyone's "freedom" from those failures. A persons "freedom" to succeed or fail doesn't happen in a vacuum with no consequences to the rest of us. So if the ultimate goal is a "free society", there are some other things to factor in and think about. It's a little more complicated that just being "free" to succeed or fail on your own merits.

     

    If a nations economy collapses, and total chaos, crime and war break out, I would not call that a "free society". People won't be "free" to operate easily or at will in those conditions. If a child is justifiably terrified that they will get shot to death by a gang member on their way to school, they are not "free". TECHNICALLY, they are living in a "free" and open society, but they are not free. So, we need to look at what the ultimate consequences are going to be, and what that "freedom" really means.

     

    Again, if the goal is to create a "free society", but hard working people can't find employment, and become homeless, through no failure of their own doing, that's not freedom. There is a bigger picture. It's more complicated than just succeeding or failing on our own merit. There are people who kill themselves trying to make a good life, and they fail for no fault of their own.

     

    A well functioning society can only happen if enough individual members are functioning well. People who experience injustice and/or extreme difficulty tend to give up hope and turn to actions that are counter productive, and self destructive.

     

    If people who failed, quietly suffered out the rest of their lives, or just keep trying until things got better, that might perpetuate a healthy cycle of constructive behavior. But, often enough, that isn't what happens. Destructive behavior cycles over and over, and perpetuates itself indefinitely in this world. A very few people break out of the cycle, but that isn't going to be enough to insure our future. It only takes a few people to cause a lot of trouble and destruction for everybody else.

     

    I'm not saying that a competitive and merit based compensation and reward system is a bad thing. There needs to be some kind of motivation for people to produce. Obviously friendliness, cooperation and goodwill isn't seen as a good enough reason for personal motivation, so I'll guess we will just need to rely on something else.

     

    There is a bigger picture. There are more pieces to the puzzle. Why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer has consequences. If science could genetically engineer people who could be exploited and enslaved for other people's personal gain, and those genetically engineered people didn't mind being slaves, that might be a good solution for the rich people. Well, in the mean time, I guess other methods will need to be employed.

     

    Actually, a lot of middle class and poor people wouldn't even mind not having much, as long as they could "get by" somehow. A person doesn't really need much for material things to live. But when people can't even afford a place to live, or food to eat, or some basic health care, there will be consequences.

     

    My grandfather built a log cabin by himself for my grandparents. They had no running water. They used an "outhouse" to go the bathroom. In many ways it was basic survival. But if you own the property, and can pay the taxes, it's a good feeling, even if life is very hard. But the modern world has made that way of life, and those simple satisfactions almost impossible.

     

    So what's the answer? Maybe aliens should invade and exterminate the genetically inferior beings. :rofl:

  8. Posted

    I have hired plenty of women. None of them have ever stuck at it.

     

    If 90% of all traders fail, you would have needed to have hired at least 10 women to get one that could make money. If the failure rate is 95%, you would have needed to hire 20 women to assure that one succeeded. 20 * 0.5 = 1

     

    Of course, you may have noticed a success rate in men, that you didn't see in women, regardless of what the statistics are. I don't know.

     

    I'm not trying to make a case either way. But there is a serious problem with making absolute statements without some kind of information that is then used for some kind of a rational proof.

  9. Posted

    Apr 28, 2001 The U.S. news at 8:30 am this morning was bad. Where was the bottom of the SP e-mini today? At 8:30am. Wait! Hold on! The news was BAD, and then the ES went up all day? Yes, that's right. The second the bad news at 8:30 came out, the es bottomed and started going up. Why? Probably in anticipation of the 10am news. And the 10am news was unexpectedly good. Pending home sales were way up. Does somebody know something before the official new release? Who knows? The reality is, that the ES seems to somehow (magically?) move towards a price that reflects the real news, way before it's released.

  10. Posted

    These are the demographics of people who WILL fail according to a poll I took. The sample size was one. I interviewed myself. Attached is a the data file, including statistical analysis.

     

     

    People who will fail at trading:

     

    1. People with minivans - It's been proven that people with minivans have to many things to do, and can't become totally obsessed with the study of trading.
    2. People who like watching court television shows - People who like watching Judge Judy have been studied, and it's been proven that their brains have atrophied.
    3. People with degrees in Political Science - People with degrees in Political Science have been proven to not be able to deal with real world situations, and can never face the real solution.
    4. Former World Wrestling Federation (WWF) champions - They smash their computer equipment.

     

     

    People who are most likely to succeed at trading:

     

    1. Nudest - They have no fear of things that are immaterial to trading.
    2. Circus Performers - They know how to deal with risk
    3. Septic System Cleaners and Garbage Disposal Collectors - They are persistent in the face of difficulty
    4. Illusionists - They know the difference between a fake price move and the real thing

     

    This is original material. I just thought it up. Comedians came in fifth for people most likely to succeed at trading.

     

    Tradewinds

  11. Posted

    do you think that we haven't enemy,or is a double effect of what we saw at the mirror,if i don't saw enemy when i look at myself in the mirror ,i would love see ever an allied.

     

    I huge part of the answer to our individual problems, and our collective problems is to respect ourselves. It might seem that people would automatically respect themselves, out of self interest. But in reality, people are self destructive, and really show very little respect for themselves. The type of respect that I'm talking about isn't superficial, material, or socially status related. Those things do not get at the very core or who and what a person is.

     

    I know that I am extremely harsh and dark in my outlook of the human condition. But I don't want people to misunderstand. Even though I see the terrible dark side, I don't want to be on the dark side. I prefer to look in the mirror and give myself value and respect, and hope for the best, for myself and for this world as a whole.

  12. Posted

    I previously stated that I don't care if people insult the SP e-mini, complain about it, are frustrated by it, or even think it's a conspiracy to take all your money. That doesn't mean that I personally have anything against the SP e-mini. In fact, that is really all I care about as far as trading goes. I personally feel that there are aspects of the SP e-mini, that can actually make it easier to trade. With an index, I know, (at least superficially) why the index does what it does. The SP e-mini follows the overall market. I has to, . . . it's an index. With a single stock, I'm not necessarily sure what is affecting that individual stock.

    And what affects the market overall? Just basic news. And they tell you exactly when the news is going to come out. Most of the price move has to do with speculation before the news, and then how the actual news release plays out relative to the speculation, and expectations. That's 90% of the "game" right there. That's not "rocket science". Don't misunderstand me, even though it's not "rocket science", it's just tricky enough to be a little confusing at times.

    I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's difficult. It's both. It depends what you know, and how well you can execute actions from what you know. I choose not to tell anyone what I know. Sorry! :rofl:

  13. Posted

    The other half of the story, is that all the people who are NOT rich, will not cooperate with each other. If they did, then the majority could easily do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. But people tend to be suspicious and wary of cooperating with each other or going into some kind of joint venture together. People don't work very well together, and self-interest usually outweighs the common good. This allows the masses of people to be manipulated and controlled by a small percentage of people. Most people are just to stupid to "get it". And even when there is an exceptional leader, that leader may get frustrated and just give up, because they can't get anyone to cooperate for the common good.

    For all practical purposes, the groups of people who often rise to power are the ones who come up with better, more effective ways of killing.

  14. Posted

    Actually, it wouldn't be a bad strategy of the U.S. to "load up" on cheep Chinese goods, and then not pay them back. The U.S. could get a lot of goods for almost nothing. Just use China as a slave. So stock up on supplies now. Hopefully those inexpensive Made in China goods will last long enough to make it through the great depression number 2.

    Bring all the troops home, then implement military law in the U.S. Do random drug testing on everyone in order to dry up the demand for drugs coming from Mexico. Have the military implement martial law in the U.S. after society breaks down and total chaos erupts.

    Then ID everyone with an embedded computer chip so you can be tracked every second of the day. That will cut down on crime.

  15. Posted

    The US won't go down without a fight ...

     

    They are going to:

    1. try and screw their creditors via inflation (which is already happening)

    2. if that fails, they will try to screw their biggest creditors (China) by making up some accusations of currency manipulation\fraud and then essentially write off those debts

    3. if that fails, they will threaten to nationalize 'critical to the US' companies and threaten to pull all of them out of China and put in other locations with cheap labor

    4. if that fails, they will go to war

     

    And on US soil, this is going to happen:

    1. severe depression because of inflation and no jobs

    2. a hallowing out of middle america to the big cities

     

    It's sad but I don't think the leadership has the balls to do anything drastic to turn this around. Greed and corruption has ruined this country ... just like every other world power in the past

     

    Exactly right. The only way the U.S. can come up with the money to pay it's debts is to print money. Most people believe that printing loads of money with no real backing, will devalue the dollar, and also cause inflation. I'm not so sure of that myself, but I have nothing to really base that on. Inflation is partly being caused by higher oil prices.

     

    The real problem is human behavior. We are our own worst enemy.

  16. Posted

    The age of the U.S. had already ended. That happened 20 or more years ago. The only reason the U.S. has maintained the government is through borrowing. The U.S. is already dead. It's been on "life support" through borrowing and now it's time to start planning for funeral arrangements. Everyone is just waiting for the U.S. to take it's last gasp of air and die.

     

    Class warfare has been going on for 30 years. And now the class war is over. Guess who lost? The middle class is dead. They are on life support also.

     

    Who cares about Iraq, we should have invaded Mexico and taken them over. Bring all the troops home, and if someone messes with someone else, just drop a few nuclear bombs on them. The world population is way to big anyway. The only real deterrent is Guaranteed Mutual Destruction. Actually, they call it Mutually Assured Destruction. It's a real strategy. So start using all these nuclear weapons. What's the sense in building them, and just letting them sit and rust? Either that or just have an Armageddon like war. That will help bring the population down. There are not enough war causalities.

     

    Swine flu could have been the best thing that could have happened, but that didn't go very far. Modern medicine is just too good at keeping people alive. Why are they inoculating all the children in Africa? So they can survive childhood, then get AIDS and die? What's the point?

     

    We already have an economic slave class. Let's just make slavery legal.

     

    China has the right idea. Limit every family to one child. And let's euthanize all these people with Alzheimers. The drowning people are going to drag down everyone else.

  17. Posted

    Yah, I like what you are saying about stability. I don't need massive number crunching either. With price targets put in ahead of time, and a reason for those price targets, speed really becomes almost immaterial. I keep my focus on a handful of things. It's not good to have information overload.

    I bought a CPU that could be overclocked, but then I got thinking about the issues of increasing the voltage, etc, and wondered why anyone using their computer for trading would want to risk burning out their video card during a trading session. That doesn't make any sense to me.

  18. Posted

    I sometimes look at the reviews for different computer components. If there are hundreds of reviews, then the rating is almost always 4 out of 5 stars. The only 5 star hardware components are usually ones that are the highest end, and don't have a lot of reviews. So it's a catch 22 situation. Buy a highly rated component that doesn't have a lot of reviews? Buy a component that has a good rating with a lot of reviews? Buy a component that has the fewest bad reviews as a percentage? I was curious as to what the custom built computer builders were using. In the end, I'm not sure what to really use.

  19. Posted

    I know it's probably sacrilege around here to insult the vaunted S&P e-mini but . . . .

    The S&P e-mini is hard to trade. . . . . It's very difficult at times to get a fill unless price moves through your price.

     

    You are absolutely right. I agree with you. I don't care if you insult the S&P e-mini. It is kind of strange that some people rush in to defend trading when someone vents their frustrations. Does the market need defending? Is the market such a delicate, kind and gentle soul that it needs to be defended by people? I don't think so.

     

    And then there are those people who will offer you their advice, because out of the goodness of their heart, they just want to help you. Yah! Right. . . . Like trading is a goodwill industry full of people just trying to help each other. I don't think so!

     

    So why would anyone take it personally if someone else criticizes the market or the trading industry? Why would they take it personally?

  22. Posted

    nobody ever build a computer to save money. you do it for the fun.

     

    After thinking about it, you have forced me to agree against my will. So I guess that means I derive pleasure from torturing myself :rofl:

     

    if you don't enjoy reading instructions, and are not up to date with computer technologies, don't do it.

     

    Oh, please! Spare us such kind and compassionate advice. I'm feeling sick to my stomach. Like eating too much sugar. ;)

     

    If you don't enjoy the problem solving process of building a computer, don't do it.

    You will waste time, and lose lots of hair.

     

    You just stated that it's done for the fun of it. Now you are saying not to do it. I don't want to build a computer. Yes you do! No, you don't! Yes, you do! No! Don't do it! I have to do it! I want to do it! Why do you do this to yourself! Because it's so much fun. :rofl:

     

    ps. there is really no excuse for trying to connect an old disk to a new MB... ;-)>

     

    I MUST do it! I can't help myself.

  23. Posted

    building computer is easy these days.

    you don't need any special tools,

    or any esoteric knowledge or skills.

    just buy the parts and assemble the pieces together.

     

    Well, . . . yes, building them isn't so hard. Line the screw up with the little hole and turn screw with screwdriver. Plug hardware into slot. Plug wires together that will only go one way. That is the easy part. Push too hard on the pins to secure the CPU and crack your motherboard. Well, that's another problem.

     

    If it's a brand new hard drive, and the operating system installs without any problem, then you'll probably be okay. A lot of people return motherboards because their computer build won't start up after they've assembled it. Whether it's really a bad motherboard or not? Who knows? I thought maybe I had a bad motherboard, but it turns out it was probably the fact that I was trying to use an existing hard drive with a new motherboard and processor.

     

    I still get blue screen errors on the computer I built. For the time I spent working on that computer, I could have paid for 10 computers. If time is money, that is. Maybe I just have bad luck.

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