By this logic would you also consider trading OIL (USO) and Palantir a "obscene" market.
But disregarding this admittedly niche attitude; it's not the same thing. If you're opening bets on the ships being bombed before a certain date, you're opening incentives for people to do so. Although buying OIL or Palantir is morally questionable, it does not create such direct incentives.
how about short-selling of stocks, isn't it the same thing? I'd even argue that sinking one ship affects say 10 people of the crew who most probable will survive in the warm Gulf waters whereis sinking a company may affect many people life outcomes probably causing a number of indirect deaths. CDS of 2008 would be similar example.
>buying OIL or Palantir is morally questionable, it does not create such direct incentives
it creates direct incentives to suppress competitors - wind and solar energy for OIL, and whoever Palantir competitors are.
Wrt. "Hormuz open" - does the "open" definition includes the new fee Iran would be taking for the strait traverse (something like $1/barrel, nice for Iran, how come that they had't implemented such an idea before? one can only wonder)
Probably someone would have bombed their country of they had done that before. That and the reverse are pretty basic assumptions..
Yes. That's why it's illegal to short-sell your stocks just before you announce that your company is broke.
There are no such regulations when betting on a bomb dropping on a boat.
Surely, you acknowledge that funding something is a rather direct way of actively supporting it. It is your money and your choice of what you choose to invest it in, and thus how you choose to shape the future. If you buy OIL to make money, you are still responsible for the additional investment made in oil, and are still shaping the future, whether you like it or not.
All of the money comes from consumers. The money may change hands 100 times in between, but the money from consumers goes to producers.
If you purchase any products which included petroleum in your life, whether it's a house, car (EV or not), or stretchy clothes, that is what funds the oil producers. That where the money goes into the system, including to investors as return.
Absolutely, but I believe you are conflating investing vs donating. The literal definition of investing is:
> Allocating money (or capital) with the expectation of generating a return or profit over time.
Would you buy stocks of ClusterBombsInc over CureForCancerInc because it has slightly better prospects?
Modern equities and futures markets are highly evolved and rather carefully regulated systems. We've spent centuries learning what the failure modes are and how to guard against them. It's never perfect, it's never going to be perfect -- it's fundamentally a voting system -- but in general, we get liquidity and price discovery at a relatively low cost, while avoiding fraudulent and evil behavior like wash trading and criminal profit laundering.
These new "prediction markets" have been put in place without any of those hard-earned protections. And surprise, they're rife with dirty trick and dirty money.
I mean, looking at futures and stocks now, I dont believe in those anymore anyway.
Carbon-related environmentalism and greed now go hand in hand.