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The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Like your friend, you assert with no evidence. Weak. Since you have no evidence, argument, or basically ANYTHING to back you up other than calling me names, why don't you quit now? I can see why you and Jeff are friends...birds of a feather, both filled with sound and fury, but in the end it's all just bluster that you cannot back up. It's a pity. When you have some evidence for your assertions, please feel free to write and I'll actually respond...so far, your doing the same as Jeff: 1. Say something stupid. 2. Be contradicted by those who know what they're talking about. 3. Call names. Kinda childish, Refried. If you have ANY evidence that God created morality, then please lay it out, or explain to me how you disagree with the points I've made above, (like would you be a rapist if fear of God didn't stop you -- do you have ANY evidence that different cultures have different moralities), or please make any kind of argument at all...I'm still waiting. You said I'm over my head. Well, show me the errors of my ways rather than just calling me names. (P.s. I use Google because it's a good information tool...what do you use? Prayer?)— January 7, 2012 9:55 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Oh wait...we DID have this discussion before Refried...maybe you don't remember, but you participated: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/nov/18/sh… Do we really need to repeat it here? Let's save time...just re-read what I wrote two years ago. If anything, the evidence for the biological evolution of morality is stronger today than it was then. Please, let's keep this topic on the morality of economics, and whether your friend Jeff with his gambling on food does good or evil in the world.— January 7, 2012 5:48 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Yes, liquidity can be good for markets. But excess liquidity searching for a home leads to waste and asset bubbles. Where did you study economics?— January 7, 2012 5:01 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Here's hundreds of evolutionary biologists who present convincing evidence that morality is inborn, the product of natural selection, and independent of any religion. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=origin+of+mor… Like your friend Jeff, you don't seem to read or think much for yourself if you believe that morality came from religion. Religion did NOT create morality. If anything, religion hijacks morality and claims it as its own. Atheism is NOT a religion, any more than being a non-stamp collector is the same as being a stamp collector. Are you really serious? I don't ask the government or Jaweh or Beezebub or Enlil to protect my investments...I only ask that government enforce rules fairly and equally, and treat crime as crime, whether it's committed by a gang banger or a Madoff. You make unfounded assertions...show me your proof. My case is very easy to prove. If morality were merely a cultural invention, then morality would be VERY different from culture to culture. It's not. We all, every where in the world, have the same basic morality. Empathy is ingrained in us for very good reasons. Those of us who have it are able to thrive and grow in society. Those who don't are pyschopaths who deserve either treatment, jail, or execution. This is true in every society. There's a simple test to prove my case...if you didn't think God would punish you, would you immediately go out to steal, rape, and murder? Is your fear of God the only reason you act morally? Well...if so, you're not moral at all, just scared into acting better than you otherwise would. But I know you're a better man than that, and don't need the threat of eternal damnation to treat your fellow humans as you would wish to be treated. Remember, Madoff and Abramoff both claimed to be religious. Didn't stop them from committing crimes. Vaclav Havel was an atheist, didn't stop him from being a moral exemplar. The religion question, however, is FAR off topic here...shouldn't we take this some place else? The Sheeps and Goats archive ought to have several long discussions on the topic you can join.— January 7, 2012 4:57 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
WTF = Welcome To Facebook. :-)— January 6, 2012 10:45 p.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Refried, Jeff is your friend, and so you can't be expected to think clearly. If you cannot follow the logic above, well...not my problem. I'm sure everyone else gets it. As to atheism and morality, I suggest you are being disingenuous. You and I both know that religion never "created" morality. It exists as part of the human condition, and has nothing to do with some invisible angry sky daddy. I suspect that atheists are MORE moral than your average religious nut...we don't believe in divine forgiveness, so we have to actually live moral lives on this earth in our own lifetime, rather than hoping for redemption. "Over-procreation in Africa"? WTF? You wanna walk that one back? Refried, you haven't been in this discussion...jumping in only after your buddy made a public fool of himself. So lay off if you don't have anything to contribute other than the same kinds of personal insults that Jeff substitutes for argumentation and reason.— January 6, 2012 6:28 p.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Refried, see below...yes, what he does for a living results in dead children. That's the world we live in today, and I won't pretend to admire someone who does this kind of immoral gambling for a living.— January 6, 2012 11:31 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
How Derivatives Gamblers KILL CHILDREN First, you should read the rest of Taibbi's article. He delves into how derivatives traders artificially inflated the price of gasoline through market manipulation while claiming to just be hedging, or "discovering price" through trading paper. The same is applicable to ALL commodities today, especially food. When the manipulators and gamblers play their immoral games, someone has to pay. For most of us, a rise in the price of food (say corn and wheat) is no more burden than paying double for our bread at the grocery store. But for the very poor, especially in the developing world where people subsist on a dollar a day, even a slight shift in world prices can mean disaster. So, when I say that Jeff is literally stealing food from children, responsible for starvation, this is what I'm talking about. Children starve when the prices of commodities soar -- not due to genuine market conditions, but solely due to traders like Jeff gambling the prices higher. There are so many of these parasites now that the pieces of paper they play with determine the price of food as much, and too often more so, than the weather, pests, or bad harvests. This isn't an accident, or unintended by-product of their behavior, this is a cynical and calculated effort to fatten themselves at the expense of the poorest in the world. Participating in this market when you're not genuinely a farmer or have anything to do with growing or distributing food is highly lucrative, as Jeff brags. But in the end you cannot escape the ugly fact that the result is dead children.— January 6, 2012 11:29 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
A Short History of Derivatives (from Matt Taibbi) The commodities market was designed in large part to help farmers: A grower concerned about future price drops could enter into a contract to sell his corn at a certain price for delivery later on, which made him worry less about building up stores of his crop. When no one was buying corn, the farmer could sell to a middleman known as a "traditional speculator," who would store the grain and sell it later, when demand returned. That way, someone was always there to buy from the farmer, even when the market temporarily had no need for his crops. In 1936, however, Congress recognized that there should never be more speculators in the market than real producers and consumers. If that happened, prices would be affected by something other than supply and demand, and price manipulations would ensue. A new law empowered the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the very same body that would later try and fail to regulate credit swaps — to place limits on speculative trades in commodities. As a result of the CFTC's oversight, peace and harmony reigned in the commodities markets for more than 50 years. All that changed in 1991 when, unbeknownst to almost everyone in the world, a Goldman-owned commodities-trading subsidiary called J. Aron wrote to the CFTC and made an unusual argument. Farmers with big stores of corn, Goldman argued, weren't the only ones who needed to hedge their risk against future price drops — Wall Street dealers who made big bets on oil prices also needed to hedge their risk, because, well, they stood to lose a lot too. This was complete and utter crap — the 1936 law, remember, was specifically designed to maintain distinctions between people who were buying and selling real tangible stuff and people who were trading in paper alone. But the CFTC, amazingly, bought Goldman's argument. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-gre…— January 6, 2012 11:21 a.m.
The Stock Market Roller Coaster
Refried, your friend Jeff has called me a sex offender, among other things, for characterizing what he does as gambling rather than investing. You've been online discussing things here for a long time, and you know that I don't often go out of my way to insult people...Jeff is so offensive that it was necessary to put him in his place. Please review the above conversation. Your friend Jeff really needs to grow up. Don't try to lump us into the same package...that's both simplistic and unfair. I really would like to discuss these issues, but Jeff was only calling names -- way over the line. He deserved the spanking I gave him. best, Fred— January 6, 2012 8:22 a.m.