10/16   ACORN really is the biggest threat to democracy?  Holy shit.  Who
        knew get out the vote drives were so dangerous.
        \_ Uh, didn't know it was "the biggest".  You might want to check out
           the situation in Ohio though.
           \_ "We need to know the full extent of Sen. Obama's
              relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe
              perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in
              this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
              The fact the McCain is morally bankrupt enough to say this
              in a debate is just... well.. wow.
              \_ The GOP is playing a very dangerous game here, by threatening
                 violence if they lose. They could really end up in a very
                 big hole for a very long time if they follow through on that
                 threat.
           \_ What, where the supreme court agreed that the voter
           \_ What, where the supreme court unanimously agreed that the voter
           \_ What, where the supreme court unanimously agreed that voter
              disenfranchisment is not a valid campagin tactic?

10/16   http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1198779&pageid=0
        Okay, here's one emerging mkts article.  I'm not offering it to support
        my case--just take it as a data point.
        \_ There is no evidence of leverage here, just a flight to quality,
           which is occuring in markets worldwide.

10/16   Glenn Becks to join Fox News. Bahahahahahahahaha it's about time.
        The guy's fucking annoying on CNN.
        \_ As bad as he is, he still won't pull down the average IQ at Faux
           News.  Damn he's a moron, of the Palin level grade.

10/22   How many people here still day trade (compared to the dot-com
        days when almost everyone played)?
        \_ it's too dangerous right now.
        \_ looks like only Thu was an OpEx up day - but expectation was met
        \_ Dude, I just *started* day trading. It's an awesome environment
           to trade in. These wild, crazy swings up and down are great for
           trading! I can make $1000/day easy. I can see why some people
           get overconfident and quit their day jobs. I'm just enjoying it
           while it lasts.
           \_ What are you betting on these days? I'm too chicken so I
              only do QQQQ and DIA and I'm actually doing OK with the
              predictable fluctuations. In addition I'm trading such
              low volume that if I get screwed, I'll just hold on for
              5-20 years and will still be ok.
              \_ Just close out your position at the end of each day and
                 you'll never be screwed. I place stops to limit losses.
                 The bad part is that I miss big gaps up at open. The good
                 part is that I miss big gaps down at open.
                 \_ But you end up paying transaction fees.
                    \_ 1. I get free trades through my broker.
                       2. Even if I didn't, you think I am going to sweat
                          a $20 fee to make $1000+? It's not as many
                          trades as you think. 2-4 per day is all I need.
                          You can keep changing the stops and limits all
                          you want and it's still the same "trade" if it
                          doesn't execute.
                          \_ Doesn't the capital gains tax make your gains
                             go away for the most part?
                             \_ No more than it does for other income.

10/17   Trader on Intrade was artificially boosting John McCain's contract
        value
        http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002976265&referrer=js
        \_ You mean a Republican was trying to manipulate the election?
           Say it isn't so Joe!

10/17   Buffet:  Buy stocks now you fucks </troll>
        \_ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html
           \_ I was about to post this as well.
        "I've been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I'm
        talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States
        government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway
        holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep
        looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100
        percent in United States equities."

10/16   I bought a 18-200mm DX Nikkor a while ago but after reading the
        posts below I have a lot of regrets. I already registered with
        Nikon. Can I still sell it on eBay for a good price, since the
        warranty is *not* transferable?
        \_ What do you expect from a lens with 11X zoom range?  I once compared
           my friend's 18-200 DX with my 18-70 DX by shooting the same scene
           with the same settings on my D80 body.  My 18-70 yielded slightly
           sharper pictures.  I imagine a prime will do even better.
        \_ So, you're saying that you had no regrets until you read
           the posts here?  Then what's the problem?  Go out, take
           pictures, enjoy it.  No one should be expecting a
           consumer-level lens with 11x zoom range to match a high-end
           primes in contrast, color, and other qualities, but it's
           still going to take good pictures (if used right) while
           giving the you the flexibility of the 11x zoom.  Even in
           the worst case, it's going to give you much better image
           than those little cameras with puny sensors can.
        \_ I recommend you get the 14-24mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8.
           These two are the most amazing lenses I've ever had with
           amazing contrast, sharpness, and bokeh. Sell your consumer
           grade DX lens and take it as a hard lesson learned. Oh and
           buy a couple of SB-800 (or more 600s) so you can do really
           creative shots in almost any light conditions.

10/17   Mervyns announces liquidation of store inventory and closing down of
        all of its stores
        \_ I'm a man. Most motd surfers are men. And we care about
           Mervyns because... ?
           \_ Because most geeks shop at Sears, K-mart, and Mervyn's for
              clothes and not Armani, Zegna, and Bloomingdale's.
              \_ I get my clothes from Old Navy and http://Amazon.com
              \_ I shop at Banana Republic (sales rack) and Nordstrom's rack.
                 But I am a manager so perhaps not a true geek anymore.

10/17   http://www.mcclatchydc.com/310/story/54360.html
        McCain decides to vilify ACORN as the worst thing since Hitler
        and funny enough his supporters take him to heart and act on
        the belief.  Where's the McCain isn't responsible for his actions
        guy when you need him?

10/17   Ok. I'm here now. Where's the party at?
        \_ what party?

10/17   Is corporate tax (tax for corporations) progressive? Does the rate
        encourage mom&pop shops, or is it equal regardless of corporation
        revenues? Shouldn't it encourage mom&pop shops more?
        \_ In CA at least, a small company is an S-Corp.  Partners in the
           company divide the net revenue based on percentage ownership and
           then add that to their other income.  This is the most common form
           of small company, so the rates are the same as personal (and hence
           just as progressive).
        \- the majority of corporations doing business in the US dont pay
           any corporate taxes, so there is a large diff between the de jure
           and de fact (effective) tax rates. you can google for the GAO
           and de facto (effective) tax rates. you can google for the GAO
           study on this which came out this summer. --psb
           \_ url?
           \_ Exxon paid $30B in 2007.
   http://seekingalpha.com/article/63131-exxon-s-2007-tax-bill-30-billion
              \- company's total tax liability != us corporate taxes. i believe
                 we are implicitly talkiing about us payments.

10/17   Up up and away: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909dow.htm

10/17   McCain hired same robo-call slime firm to attack Obama as attacked
        him in 2000:
        http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/did_mccain_hire_same_firm_to_d.php

10/17   http://tinyurl.com/55qdqa
        Article speculating that "oil bubble" was caused by hedge funds
        and that oil prices are down now because hedge funds have had
        massive redemptions. Where are the peak oil weenies now? Oil -> $50.
        \_ What are you, twelve?  A drop in price is an opportunity to
           fix our oil dependency once and for all.
        \_ Peak Oil is not a matter of it, just when. As I said before,
           oil prices are very inelestic and since demand is down, prices
           should be way down. They will be back up again soon enough, take
           advantage of the respite to save.
           \_ Uh huh. Obviously oil prices are not that inelastic, because
              they've fallen like a stone.
              \_ Inelastic does not mean what you think it means. Oil
                 consumption in the US is expected to decline, in spite
                 of the fact that prices are down. Worldwide demand is still
                 going to go up, just less than before.
                 \_ So worldwide demand is going up, but prices are falling
                    like a stone. Please start making sense.
                    \_ Go read an econ textbook or something. Elastic ==
                       price and demand are tightly correlated. Inelastic ==
                       demand stays constant (relatively) no matter what
                       happens to price.
                       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
                       http://tinyurl.com/634txb (this is better actually)
                       \_ I've taken more econ. than you have I bet.
                          Please to be explaining why the price of oil is
                          falling. If demand is constant no matter what
                          then what incentive is there for the price to fall?
                          \_ Hmm, let me think, it is called a supply/demand
                             curve. I wonder what variable other than demand
                             could be in play here...
                             \_ You think supplies are increasing that
                                much, huh? Kinda blows away the idea that
                                we are close to peak oil, wot wot? 2008
                                production is 1-2% higher than last year:
                                we are close to peak oil, wot wot?
                                (2008 production is 1-2% higher than last year:
                                http://tinyurl.com/yprlk . Clearly that's
                                enough to cause the price to fall in half.
                                WTF do you think these curves look like?
                                No, the issue here is with the demand
                                side: specifically, speculators.
                                \_ I think it is pretty obvious what the
                                   curves look like and that you are in denial
                                   about it. A very small increase or decrease
                                   in production over demand has a huge impact
                                   on prices. No one (or no reasonable person,
                                   at least) would claim that the "Peak" event
                                   will happen all at once. There is always
                                   going to be small movement up and down, as
                                   global events influence production. Also,
                                   as prices go up, new sources become
                                   economically recoverable. You should
                                   consider the strengthening dollar in your
                                   analaysis of how much prices have moved.
                                   Priced in Yen or Euro's, oil prices have
                                   moved quite a bit less. Don't mistake dollar
                                   volatility for commodity price volitility.
                    \_ http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7875749
                       The IEA still believes crude consumption will be higher
                       than in the same period last year (+400,000 bpd)
        \_ sure, lots of levered long plays on oil by all sorts of funds
           (hedge, pension, other institutionals).  with global slowdown,
           everyone ran for the exits.  this is common knowledge for many
           traders.  those evil speculaterss!!1
        \_ I hope they're topping off the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
        \_ Peak oil isn't scheduled to arrive until around 2010-2012 -- I
           said multiple times only a global recession could drive down prices
           which is exactly what is happening.  Since the market is projecting
           a global economic contraction, demand will be reduced so prices
           go down.  This all has nothing to do with peak oil, which is about
           the peak in oil *SUPPLY*.
           \_ Peak oil weenies claimed that the reason prices were so high
              was because the world was going to run out by 2020 or
              something. That was fear mongering. There's so much supply
              that OPEC is talking about reducing output. The current price
              is a good indicator that we're not close to peak oil yet.
              You don't go from "plentiful oil" to "peak oil" in 2 years
              (or whatever it was), sorry.
              \_ Peak oil specifically says the second 1/2 of the world's
                 total usable oil will be so expensive to extract that
                 it'll cost MORE to extract with current technology than to
                 sell the oil, hence no one will extract it anymore.
                 \_ Okay. And what evidence is there we are at the halfway
                    point?
              \_ If the definition of "plentiful oil" is "more than demand"
                 then indeed it's easy to do that.  Oil supply has been flat
                 for about 3 years now, and there is no proof that it's going
                 to go up anytime soon.
                 \_ Supply is going to (roughly) match demand. When you can say
                    there's a problem is when supply cannot be met. One
                    indicator of that is when production decreases even as
                    prices rise. Clearly, we are not there yet.
        \- A good (non-ideological) question is "why do oil prices have so
           much more volatility than the instability of supply and demand".
           the simple answer is the prices are also a function of changing
           information/expectation *and* given a production cartel and other
           influential players with "market power" [to abuse that term a
           bit]. so in addition to speculators, there is strategic production
           strategy. it's not reasonable to write another 1000 words on this
           and frankly i dont understand it that well, but there more to it
           than supply and demand and elasticity. You may also want to
           look up Contango and Backwardation. Per my earlier link about
           manipulation in the copper mkt, the way these mkts work is very
           far removed from theory ... i.e. there is no simple answer.
           [if you are familar with economics, part of thinking about this
           involves the "art" of teasing out short run phenomena from long
           run equillibria. for an analogy in FX, say DORNBUSCH OVERSHOOTING
           vs convergence to PPP "eventually"].

10/17   Does anyone actually own Berkshire Hathaway Inc shares?
        \_ No. No one does.
        \_ I own some BRK-B
           \_ You must be wealthy. Do you own over 10 stocks?
              \_ BRK-B is only $4000.
                 \_ If I had 10 shares of that I'd be rich      -grad student
              \_ Sites like sharebuilder let you buy partial shares.

10/17   http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=31449
        44-year-old veteran trader kills self after losing several million
        daytrading S&P 500 futures on Wed.
        \_ And we should pity gamblers because ......
           \_ Because he worked very hard like many Americans do.
              \_ Most Americans don't live on gambling.
                 \_ What's fundamentally different between a Math PhD at
                    Goldman Sachs doing numerical analysis to beat the
                    market vs. a stock broker who uses his superior
                    understanding of psychology to beat the market?
                    \_ Neither of them are doing anything particularly
                       useful, so no, not fundamendally different.
           \_ who says we are pitying da foo'?
           \- nouriel roubini has killed himself:
       http://gawker.com/5064429/nick-denton-is-an-anti+semite-with-a-nazi-mind