jeromec

Edit: To clarify, even when a company pays dividends which holding the stock entitles you to you are speculating the company will continue to pay, or be able to pay, which is why you continue to hold the stock. This is why stocks are risky -- they have no guaranteed value (or backing) and can crash theoretically at anytime.

But that's not the cause of our higher prices. Listen, I can't keep arguing this. Do me a big favor and just read the first 3 paragraphs here:

http://useconomy.about.com/od/commoditiesmarketfaq/p/high_oi...

As a consequence, suppliers now want to supply more and consumers want to consume less.

Suppliers want to supply more. So, if you're some Saudi Arabian sheik witnessing these astronomical oil prices you really want increase oil production and supply more? What will that do to oil prices? Think about what you're saying.

You're reading my text too literally. I don't mean to an arm from the sky put speculators in the middle of the wheat market. As you correctly mention, an open market will attract those who exercise self-interest. Speculators are thereby effectively "placed" in a designed market by not regulating them out.

I'm not anti-Wall St. But I am anti-recklessness when it means wreaking havoc on our national (and by extension entire world) economy.

It's difficult to deny that higher prices increase supply and/or destroy demand.

No, it's not. Actually, higher prices usually mean there is decreased supply and increased demand. That's in a normal market. But we don't even have a normal oil market. That's the entire point. When oil prices skyrocketed to record levels above $145/barrel in 2008 it wasn't because of increased demand, and those astronomical prices didn't mean an increased supply of oil either.

I'm extremely wary of the term "increased incentives" in light of recent events sparked by this model on Wall St.

and provides funding for averting real future shortages.

We just don't see gas lines to support that argument.

Edit: And what do you mean "provides funding" anyway? Speculative contracts don't raise oil producing levels, nor stockpile oil (as our Strategic Reserve does). The extra money which exists is all used up by the speculators playing the game.

Did you read the article?

These buyers and sellers of real stuff are the physical hedgers. The FDR administration recognized, however, that in order for the market to properly function, there needed to exist another kind of player - the speculator. The entire purpose of the speculator, as originally envisioned by the people who designed this market, was to guarantee that the physical hedgers, the real players, could always have a place to buy and/or sell their products.

>The speculator is there to make money, and providing liquidity is a side-effect.

Yes, speculators making money is fine. The liquidity side-effect is the reason to allow for some speculation in regulations.

> If supply is indeed artificially constricted by hoarding speculators, they will need to sell off their supply at some point.

Yes, that's why, as I said, consumers are subject to volatile price swings from investors, rather than steadier prices which would more accurately reflect supply and demand.

That's like me expecting you to say "thanks" for returning an item I took from you when it's speculation which helped drive up prices in the first place.

What speculation really does, in my view, is to insert a component of future expectations in addition to the current supply and demand effects.

That's exactly what it does. Why do we need that?

It is not entirely clear to me that adding this expectations component is always bad. It can get out of control when it becomes self feeding, but it can also convey valuable information that allows us to react early to fundamental supply and demand issues.

React early and do what? This isn't like hurricane preparedness. Again, the point the article is trying to convey is that prices don't reflect supply and demand. We experience sky rocketing gas prices but no longer see gas shortage or rationing lines. In 2008 we had significantly more people go hungry from food shortages, although nothing has changed about wheat farming except, if anything, farmers producing it more efficiently. The wheat harvest that year was the most bountiful the world had ever seen.

This is a systemic problem. Any valid explanation of price increases in a commodity, e.g., oil (gas), has to explain why prices are rising almost across the board.

This is almost exactly the point the article is trying to explain: commodity prices are rising across the board in line with the commodities index, but why should there be an index at all? In the market you have the supplier, buyer, and consumer. The "speculator" was placed into the mix with a limited role for providing liquidity; this role was intentional and helpful since in the real world there could be a delay between the time a grower/supplier and buyer/cereal producer actually needed what the other had (raw material or cash); with the speculator there was always the opportunity to buy or sell. However, there were intentional, specific limits placed on the speculator. This was to ensure he couldn't corner the market and artificially skew prices. As long as these limits remained intact the market operated as designed, and the actual price of commodities reflected real world supply and demand (since the main players in the market were physical hedgers - people who actually had stake in/cared about the physical commodity). Goldman Sachs was able to get these "speculator handcuffs" removed. This means the actual market price for commodities doesn't necessarily reflect supply and demand. Rather, it also has the component of speculation priced into it. We can see this even within these last few days. The price of a barrel of oil was skyrocketing above $100; this seemed to make sense due to the unrest in the Middle East, then amazingly with the earthquake in Japan it quickly dropped below $100. In such as short time was there really an escalation then de-escalation in the demand for oil!? Of course not. The price was following speculation, people who are only in the market to make money. The end result is that ordinary consumers must pay at the pump what the whims of investors say, never mind progress made whether politically or technologically, or reductions by consumers in a recession to ease pressure on demand and oil prices. Natural gas is not as attractive to speculators as oil.

I don't know what's the "official" (or real) story on current Twitter architecture.

http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-abandoni...

My point is that choice of language is not what will likely stand in your way of becoming a monumental startup success. Yet people will insist on promoting language wars as if it will.

With comments like the GP you'd think FB hobbled along with PHP on its way to becoming as big as it is now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CI_chondrite

Even assuming the possibility of bacteria contagion from Earth the question remains how the biological remain appears to contain no nitrogen, an essential building block to life as we know it.

I believe that should have been "is a right-brained person".

This makes me smile :)

I think you're thoughts on monetizing are right. However, I'd add a couple suggestions. You fit 9 huge designer samples on the front page. I'd shrink those a bit and add a "Featured Designers" section over the standard designers area on the front page which you can charge a premium for. Next, if the picture samples are small enough like here (http://www.weddinginvitelove.com/profiles/little-green-chair...) you have great ad space on the right side of the page. You can geo target visitors location by IP address and charge a premium to local florists, halls, and other wedding related services. Good luck!

I'm sorry you feel so constrained. To me that signals the current system is not optimum, but that's probably a lucrative decision either way.

We're seeing a nearly chaotic upheaval in how business is done in modern times, largely because technology is progressing so fast. This can confuse many of the issues at hand. However, I think it can help to view things using older more well understood models. For example, let's look at books. Harry Potter is a copyright protected work which appears to have given much value to both readers and author/rights holders alike. Each page of that book enjoys copyright protection; tearing out a page and adding words, making other adjustments etc., then posting the revised product online would violate copyright. If we can see the logic to that then I think it can help us to gain perspective when reflecting on the Sony incident.