To those of you who are wearing masks in public.

It’s statements like this that make me doubt your expertise in economics. There are commercial and non commercial traders. You can take both a long or short position as a hedge or as speculation. A hedge is used to lessen risk. It decreases speculation because you know your selling price or cost of the physical commodity you are using in your business in the future. A non commercial trader is speculating for profit. Such a trader is not protecting a business from volatility. That said, speculative non commercial trading is important and does help limit risk to commercials. However, the statement all trading is speculative is fundamentally incorrect. Dealing in cash only would be much more speculative for a non commercial than trading the derivative to limit risk.

It got done with very little resistance. It’s one reason I started to mistrust the major political parties. Thinking either one has your best interest at heart is impossible if you are using critical thinking.

I’m not sure why you keep posting information that validates my positions and refutes your own, but I do appreciate it. Your pull quote lists my reason as one of three that were necessary for the Great Recession to happen. Your other links also support my position. Here is one pull quote of many I could post if I felt it worth my time. I’ve claimed deregulation was a major factor. You claim it wasn’t. From your wiki:
“The major causes of the initial subprime mortgage crisis and following recession include international trade imbalances and lax lending standards contributing to high levels of developed country household debt and real-estate bubbles that have since burst; U.S. government housing policies; and limited regulation of non-depository financial institutions.”
Underlining added by me for emphasis.

I know, right? How sad everyone wants to be led around like sheep to slaughter by those they see as their betters.

What did they do for tracing? Your testing numbers are pretty low actually. I think “orders” are worse than useless. Those that want to stay home will without an order. Projecting force just makes other demographics less likely to comply.

This I why I maintain my position that a populace prepared to feed themselves for a period of time without forcing food industries to work is superior to mask wearing.

Everywhere is an international destination now. Hence the problems we now have.

I think you are running behind. People are tired of staying home. Polls show the number of people ready to get to work is increasing. In spite of constant bombardment with pessimism and fear mongering.

We are killing people for nothing right now. Have been all along. It’s my main point. People were personally unprepared to deal with a pandemic and many will die. We should go with the best information we have on immunity which is almost certainly 1-2 years and very likely several years. We also know what we are doing now is destroying the economy quickly. Antibody tests are more important than anything at this point in my opinion. People with antibodies have no reason to be home. Unless they can work productively at home, but that has nothing to do with the virus, they should be doing that anyway for environmental reasons...

 

The value (cost to build) is not determined by size, though. It's a function of quality, always. An 850sqf architect designed house is going to be worth more than an investor grade, builder-designed, mass-produced McMansion.

 

Someone has to take the risk. They're the speculators. Farmers who speculate in commodities are gambling like anyone else. The question for the farmer is how much he wants to pay someone to take the risk.[/QUOTE]

They acted early, developed their COVID-19 test and used it often, shut down businesses that would likely spread the virus, shut down on campus schooling, explained what they were doing to the public, and set an ambitious goal of "bending the curve" and then squashing it. The architect of the strategy is a soft spoken, confident, hopeful woman...


Dr. Bonnie Henry

... who led the fight two decades earlier against SARS. She ends her talks by telling us to be kind to each other.

She told people to get out for exercise when we were self-isolating, and reminded them to stay safe and distance. When a few younger adults were caught on camera violating self-isolating rules and she was asked to react to the pictures, she refused to condemn them and said she understands people are frustrated. I think her kindly reaction only made people want to be part of squashing the curve.

She has an iron will, however, and has everyone believing she will back off opening up types of businesses if they're shown to spread the virus. Early on, she left gyms open, but then closed them when they were shown to be a problem. She pushed hard to close the border with the U.S.

 

They acted early, developed their COVID-19 test and used it often, shut down businesses that would likely spread the virus, shut down on campus schooling, explained what they were doing to the public, and set an ambitious goal of "bending the curve" and then squashing it. The architect of the strategy is a soft spoken, confident, hopeful woman...

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Dr. Bonnie Henry

... who led the fight two decades earlier against SARS. She ends her talks by telling us to be kind to each other.

She told people to get out for exercise when we were self-isolating, and reminded them to stay safe and distance. When a few younger adults were caught on camera violating self-isolating rules and she was asked to react to the pictures, she refused to condemn them and said she understands people are frustrated. I think her kindly reaction only made people want to be part of squashing the curve.

She has an iron will, however, and has everyone believing she will back off opening up types of businesses if they're shown to spread the virus. Early on, she left gyms open, but then closed them when they were shown to be a problem. She pushed hard to close the border with the U.S.[/QUOTE]

For the first time the USA is NOT leading the world by showing the way out of this

It is place like Germany in Europe Canada on the American continent, Australia and NZ in the pacific that have shown the way

What is obvious from a “global” perspective is that countries with a more “Liberal” government seem to be doing much much better. The stand out failures are Brazil (right wing) UK (Boris ’nough said) and USA (Trump - more than enough said)

 

With respect, the idea that liberalism is a feature of First Movers is a bloody big stretch. Jordan, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Greece, Eastern European nations, etc. None qualify as overtly liberal.

That's why this pandemic is going to end up being a significant reckoning. All the tropes we subscribed to in our lazy idealism and comfort zone thinking, have been turned on their heads.

 

Yeah but look at who is mucking it up the most

USA, UK, Brazil, Italy..........

It is not definitive but it seems to be a bit of a factor. Mind you ScoMo is not exactly a world leading communist but then he is an Aussie and even our far right is left of America’s centre

 

COVID is over. It's A-okay to crowd into any city now.

 

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think you are unable to see past your perspective as an investor. A speculator is focused on volatility of the instrument whereas a hedger is concerned with the value of the underlying asset. A speculator doesn’t care which direction the market goes. Change in either direction can be profitable. A “commercial” trader is trying to lock in a price of an input or produced commodity for sale. To them market direction matters.

Sounds like a good Dr. Can’t argue with any of that except the gym thing. Should have been obvious. I suppose she was thinking about mental and physical health metrics tied to exercise. Good call on borders. Global travel took far too long to cease almost everywhere. I would have thought people would have voluntarily stopped traveling more. Our early cases came from fools going to New York and dragging it home.

 

Where did you get twit of an idea......

Oh! Of course!

Trump

 

There's nothing in the Fed analysis that supports your view derivatives were the reason for the 2008-2009 recession. The fact unregulated derivatives were an opportunity to take on huge, risky investments. AIG was saved, demonstrating clearly Lehman could also have been saved.

This from the Minneapolis Fed:

"The first was the decline in housing prices that began in the summer of 2007. Whether this was the end of a “bubble” or just an ordinary fluctuation does not matter for the narrative. The second factor was that the financial system was heavily invested in housing-related assets, mortgage-backed securities. The third factor was that the shadow banking system was invested in housing assets and highly vulnerable to bank runs.​

These three factors are the essential elements in the following narrative about the Great Recession."​

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2017/the-great-recession-a-macroeconomic-earthquake

The drop in home prices, mortgage-backed securities, and a poorly regulated nonbank sector with investments in housing. Nothing about derivatives.

On the contrary, I've said housing market was riddled with fraud. Derivatives only contributed to the instability.

Again, derivatives were only part of the problem.

The numbers infected were low. Early on, they tested everyone who showed up anywhere with symptoms. They always contact traced.

Where they have pushed on folks is social distancing in public. They also check on people who have been quarantined, but they're not getting pushy about self-isolation.

An entire populace feeding itself? For how long? Anyway, employees can put on ventilators with HEPA filters.

There is no evidence enough people will head to the mall when SARS-CoV-2 is circulating in the community.

People aren't prepared to get sick or die when there's a reasonable alternative like there is in Canada. The federal minister of finance said his job is keeping food on Canadians' tables. We're starving people back to work, but that doesn't mean we're going to starve them into spending money. If we can't, and that's almost a certainty, we're going to have a serious economic problem because of a consumer demand deficit.

Letting the virus race through the people is likely to take many months and that will destroy the economy. The best chance we have is to get the virus under control.

We have plenty of workers because we starved them out. What we don't have is enough consumers in the middle of a pandemic.

 

Australia NZ and Japan May reopen to global travel

 

Well, just like national economies, international has to open at some point. It makes sense to open to places on the downhill slope.

 

Seems so. I think this is going to be the end of Trump.

 

Thing is we CAN do this because those countries have low rates of infection

 

Agree. That’s why I support focusing on the economy in demographics and geographical locations in the US with low rates. When we have messes like NYC etc. it makes no sense for people in states with very low rates to be fed a steady diet of pessimism and be discouraged from opening up.

 

Soooooo

Alabama is not in trouble?


Thing is you have not truly flattened the curve and that was WITH lockdown

 

80's costs: Building an 1100 square foot stick house at $30,000, did so because Reagan suggested New York build a couple a house when they paid $30,000 to house them in a apartment, and I wanted to see if it was possible, I barely made it, and it certainly would cost more than 800 or 400 square feet. With about $30,000 for the zoning required 2 acre lot, which any lot would be much higher in city, total comes to a little under $300 house payment, certainly within range of most higher end poor, but then add car payment...because there are no city jobs or public transport. The zoning was effective at blocking poorer blacks moving in, which was the real purpose in the rural community where there were zero apartment complexes.

Costs increase for masks too, if you need to cover 2000 square feet of face (current zoning) it is far more costly than covering 200 square feet of face (tiny house/illegal in the land of the "free").

 

What's your point? People concerned with the commodity price because they produce or purchase it may wish to pay someone to assume the risk associated with price changes. Producers and purchasers can agree on a price between them, but they typically have different needs in terms of the commodity price and product availability and a simple agreement on price and quantity is unsatisfactory. Enter the speculator who assumes risk for a price. It's not a complicated concept.

 

I’m sorry dude, but I can’t do this anymore. Please dig a little deeper and maybe get someone you trust to explain it to you. What is it you think poorly regulated non banking sectors do exactly? I’ll give you a hint. They aren’t driving up and down spruce boulevard with a ringing bell selling ice cream treats to young children.

Here is a quote from the SEC that may help clear up some of your confusion.
“ More complicated MBSs, known as collaterized mortgage obligations or mortgage derivatives, may be designed to protect investors from or expose investors to various types of risk.”

You are now making the argument that because the word “derivative” is absent in a sentence the derivative doesn’t exist. It’s like me saying fraud didn’t exist. It was actually unethical behavior. So there is no way fraud helped precipitate the Great Recession. Or I could claim I don’t trade derivatives I actually buy and sell futures contracts. LOL

Maybe this stuff didn’t exist in the 60’s and you just don’t know about it. But this ain’t the 60’s. That ain’t MLK out there marching in the streets today torching cars and businesses.

Anyway, your argument may fool the uneducated, but not someone like me who cares about the truth.

They allowed the instability. In fact they were a big tool used to BUILD the instability. You have used Investopedia as a source before so I’m going to use them here. Here is a pull quote:
“The arguments of the cause of the financial collapse may go on for a long time, and there may never be a consensus explanation. However, we know that the use of derivative securities played a pivotal role in the system that collapsed;”

There were other factors as well, yes. From a source you trust enough to use yourself, they were “pivotal”. Here’s the dictionary definition of pivotal:
: vitally important : CRITICAL

Did they do tracing like South Korea?

A couple weeks would probably be sufficient. For this virus 3 weeks would have nearly wiped the virus out. Three weeks to accomplish what you propose to draw out for months. I know it won’t happen. But it isn’t hard or complicated. And poor people can do it. People just aren’t interested in anything if someone isn’t forcing them to do it.

So let’s just give everyone one and open all business and schools. Good idea. Also, you are circling back to your selfishness of expecting others to take risks you won’t take yourself. I find such elitism reprehensible.

Oh it’s guaranteed they won’t if they are told they are going to end up in a U-haul behind a mortuary if they venture out before the 7 billion units of unicorn blood vaccine arrives.

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The thing is, many states are in a similar situation to Canada. I don’t understand the disconnect. We aren’t all NY.

I’ll reiterate because comprehension on your end seems to be lacking. I’ve never advocated for letting it race through the general population. That is your strawman.

Well your circular argument fails again because giving people money isn’t going to fix that.

 

Did I say Alabama was Oz? No. I’m not interested in your strawman arguments either. Alabama and NY are as irrelevant to successful states as Brazil is to your country.

 

I already specifically said the speculator plays an important role. But not everyone who trades derivatives is a speculator. I explained the difference between commercials and funds(speculators). It is apparently too complicated for you to see the difference.

 

"Blame Trump" mantra dismissed on sight.

It is the media (and State Governors) who are ignoring such medical truths.

 

You "can't do this anymore" because you don't know what you're talking about.

Derivative creation and trading are not seen generally as a cause of the 2008-2009 recession. I don't know why you can't accept that fact and move on to making a case the experts are wrong.

Uh huh. You know more than the Minnesota Fed. How about at least explaining why you think they're wrong?

They were notably at the time packaging up MBS crap as AAA commercial paper and flogging it to suckers.

Source? Most of that stuff wasn't a derivative in any sense.

This is tortured BS. An MBS is not a derivative. That's why I want your source.

https://derivativedribble.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/how-to-speak-structured-finance/

Fraud was definitely involved in the creation of mortgages and the rating of MBS. Futures contacts are derivatives. What are you talking about?

I didn't stop investing in the 1960s.

MLK didn't torch businesses or cars.

You're uneducated about derivatives and I rather doubt you're all that interested in the truth.

Would it have been too difficult for you to have included the URL?

https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0210/did-derivatives-cause-the-recession.aspx

Derivatives, as I said, contributed to the recession that would have happened anyway.

They contacted people. No phone apps.

No one was forcing the people of British Columbia to stay inside. They "bent the curve" and then flattened it. Maybe they felt like cooperating because the government made sure, as the finance minister said, Canadians can "put food on the table."

I'm willing to take the "risk" because I didn't offer money for a N100 respirator with a HEPA filter. I'd bet plenty I could get on in short order for $10,000.



Why isn't the jackass you support...



...using the Defense Production Act to make sure we make enough respirators?

If you don't call me "selfish," I won't call you an "idiot." Deal?

If you could only get them to ignore 2+m cases and 100k dead...

You keep ignoring that Canada is making sure people aren't going hungry. The Republicans led by...



... and...



... are making sure we have plenty of hungry unemployed folks.

Of course, it would.

 

Of course, they aren't. But we've been over that.

My god, you are clueless. I wrote:

"Someone has to take the other side of the trade. That's the speculation. All legit. What isn't legit is allowing banks to speculate to the point the risk they take on is too great. Also not right is allowing the creation of derivatives so complex that it's all but impossible to calculate risk."​

Someone is taking the risk you don't want to take. That's the speculation.

 

Seems, at a glance, that nations heavily wedded to liberalism are doing quite badly. Sweden, the UK, the US, Germany, etc. It's possible that that's why .. the leadership understands they're presiding over citizens who won't tolerate being told what to do.

As regards Scomo .. I believe you're correct in that while he himself is a Rabid Righty, he knows he's presiding over citizens who are reasonably comfortable with strong Govt. We have some serious history in this regard, given our working class was borderline commie until earlier this century. Unions etc. That the majority of our migrant population is Eastern, further bolsters the cultural tendency to civil compliance for the good of all.