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Projecting bonds being down/increasing yields isnt surprising in any way in inflationary environment. The harder thing to get around is stocks, which should outperform cash in an inflationary environment. To me it just shows that there are many dependencies, and it is not always simple to project an outcome or response for a given class to an event.

Taking that line of thought further, that means if bonds and stocks are both down, then cash is a good place to be...when inflation is up? Investing is hard.

You can also just buy puts. Puts on SPY increase in value as SP500 declines.

part of my biggest sell indication was a visit to the site zerohedge. They are a very bearish - gold centric site. I like to visit sites like these to balance out the generally optimistic news one sees elsewhere. Recently, I have noticed that the site has lost their commenters - they are all making fun of the site and how it cost them so much money, missing out on all these gains. I realized that completely aside from things like inflation upticking, the fed removing some QE, market being incredibly highly valued - that if one of the largest bear sites around had actually lost their crowd, that even that rank and file thought it was stupid to doubt that the DOW would only go up...it might be time to think about taking a step back. At least until post-Brexit next year.

I think it has always been a reasonable assumption that a fall in the real economy would cause cryptos to fall. Play money gets liquidated first when real money (in 401k and stocks) evaporates. And the lack of liquidity in cryptos would cause it to fall faster.

Friday before last I moved 70% out of stocks and bought PUTs in July as insurance on the rest. However, as my history has shown me - one doesnt assume this makes them smart. Could just have been lucky, this time.

I do understand that, they engaged in fraud, slight of hand, whatever. But my main interest is what happened after they exchanged USDT for Bitcoin. When they did this, or as they did this, they added $2 billion or marginal demand that didn't exist in dollars to the bitcoin market. However, if they subsequently and along the way sold the BTC for USD, they also extinguished that extra demand, so the bitcoin market net-net had no extra demand - all purchases ended up being backed by USD.

I dont know the answer to the above, but its critical for the future price of bitcoin and is really really important. Everyone just seems to assume they held the bitcoin, which is a crazy move. If they could have sold for USD, it makes sense to me they would have...thats why I think its an important question. It doesnt seem to interest anyone else tho, which is fine.

The comment above said liquidity dictates they could not have, that they must still be holding bitcoin. But I also say today, bitfinex'ed, the blogger that has been on this story, says they redeemed 330 million in past 24 hrs. Which is far above the 10% of 2 billion number he said of the entire crypto market is backed by USD. So to say the liquidity doesnt exist doesnt seem to make sense, there seem to be a lot of dollars into crypto. 1 million people with $1000 invested is a billion alone. That isnt crazy.

If they hold the bitcoin, yes. I dont think anyone is missing that.

No argument there. There are multiple arguments about what Tether is or is not, and what part of this story interests people. Im most fascinated and interested in what form the proceeds of USDT sales are in. If they are holding bitcoins it has much bigger implications than if they are holding cash. Thats kind of why Im probing this. If they are really holding bitcoins, it means a spectacular implosion is coming. If holding cash, less so. If or why they all go to jail is less interesting to me.

So, whether their books line up is irrelevant to whether they committed fraud, perhaps, but VERY relevant to the price of bitcoin.

True on volatility and transactions, I shouldnt have said exactly. But volatility speaks to why you would want to exit BTC as quickly as possible, if trying to avoid. One could argue it should net out to nothing over time.

I dont see it as flooding the market with anything, the Tethers are created in effect by people exiting cryptos into Tether on all these exchanges that only deal with Tether rather than USD (potentially!).

Lets step back to Tether creation. There are zero out there. Someone gives Tether $10 million for 10 million USDT. Those matriculate out in the universe, and are being exchanged back and forth for cryptos. Someone somewhere always holds those 10 million Tether. The price of cryptos rises and rises. Now all of a sudden the demand for USDT has increased, as people who exit crypto on those exchanges need more units than before, rather than 8500 USDT per BTC its 20000 USDT per BTC. No one has given Tether anymore USD directly for USDT. What would happen in this scenario is the price of USDT would rise. One way, not the only way, but one way for Tether to bring the price back under control, would be to buy BTC for USDT, issuing new shares, to bring the price back down. Which at $1 means equillibrium.

Is that how things work, I certainly dont know. But that mechanism is one way it could work. And it could explain why USDT are created on down days. Its the demand of people getting out of BTC driving it.

Now they could totally take that money and spend it on hookers and yachts for all I know...but thats at the end of the chain.

Because its exactly equivalent to selling Tether for USD, which we know they do. There are arguments that they couldnt have liquidated so much BTC, but I don't see any specific argument that leads on to assume that they wouldnt have. Unless one puts fraud as the entire goal. Which can't be discounted, but its just not obvious, to me.

It would make them "bitcoin rich". They still would need to convert to USD at some point. Which, if their buying and holding is what drove the price higher, would subsequently crash the price.

Actually, you are the only one who has brought this up, that the liquidity dictates that they couldnt have sold BTC for USD. If that is true, then youve answered my question of what I was missing. I didnt aggressively fail to address this, it quite literally wasnt brought up. Thanks.

EDIT: This apparently is no longer a site to ask questions or to challenge assumptions in good faith to get at an understanding. Its a religious conversation. One takes things on faith, or GTFO, apparently.

I dont understand your question.

I think the math is fairly straightforward. There is a USD/USDT driven cross. Creating and destroying USDT is straightforward there. There is also a BTC/USDT cross. That creates a drive for USDT. If that demand to sell BTC and buy USDT bids up USDT, then USDT would be created, and the BTC would convert back to USD. I agree that Tether is not forthcoming that this happens, but yes this is exactly what I would expect to happen. Its not mysterious sounding to me, or necessarily nefarious. I dont understand why Im beimg downvoted, its a discussion about generic market mechanics. We can leave bogeyman words out of it.

Their assets equal liabilities in either case (whether selling USDT directly for USD, or cyclling them through BTC). Call it what you will, but in neither scenario is anyone rich. Tether if backed by USD at the end of the day is revenue neutral. What am I missing?

Buying bitcoin with it and then selling the bitcoin immediately for USD, and banking it would mean they are at least solvent, is they key point he is getting at. Im not sure why anyone would want to trust money to that without audits, but its certainly possible. And quite important!

Edit: the assumption seems to be that they are buying bitcoin and holding it, which would increase the bid and result in not being backed by USD. If they are not holding the bitcoin, then the buys and sells even out, and they are not adding to the bid, and they hold cash equivalent to USDT. I am quite interested to find out which it is.

>I don't have the wealth to get a significant share in anything that produces a return.

I don't understand your reasoning as to why this matters to the degree you think it does. Or why a minority share in an unproductive asset somehow becomes de facto better option over minority share in a productive asset.

Correct. His mindset or sugguestion is to only buy shares in a company you would wish to own entirely, and forever. Buffett stresses the ownership of the underlying business, rather than securities speculation.

just wanted to add - the cost of debt and the desire to take on debt, and the laws around mortgage debt, also play a large role.

We all, all living beings, are eaten. Such is life. If might be sacrophitic fungi, earthworms, and bacteria, it might be a wolf, it might be a housecat, it might be a vulture. It will likely be a combination of them. But our big brains doesnt escape us from nature, we are every bit a part of the grand life experience that all life shares in. Our desire for a softer gentler life while noble, doesnt check us out in any way shape or form. It just seems nicer. The one invariant on this earth, is you will be consumed. If that concept is obscene, then so is all of life.

Talking about farmscale agriculture, it's hundreds of chickens at least. If it's pastured, they likely need to be moved quite often.

Chickens are likely easiest, but on a scale to produce a living for a family, I don't think any type of farming or ranching is low effort or easy to step away from.

My point was that entire countries economies and political systems sometimes fail. That hasn't happened in the US in the same way as it's happened elsewhere. But if it had, then "timing" the market, by which I mean selling it, would not have been suboptimal.

Maybe I define market timing differently. Holding a healthy cash position for future investment and selling investments from time to time based on either their valuation or prospects, whatever that is called, is not a bad idea.

I contrast that with being 100% invested in index funds at all times, forever. That might backtest well, but that doesn't mean it will forward test at all well.

My issue with this line of thought, is that while completely true, it also doesn't mean a whole lot. It is completely dependent on it being the US stock market. And during a period for that stock market that had a number of incredibly important items go it's way. Its not backfitting because it happened, but we only find it meaningful because we happened to have been here during it. For any number of reasons, including just how the universe works, that doesn't mean anything going forward.

3 months ago I made a shift of 1/3 of my retirement funds to cash. I took 90% of my taxable accounts to cash. It's a risk, of course, everything is, but the valuations of stocks and housing are as you note high. I normally hate holding cash, but I don't see anything I want to invest in. I'm sure that will change eventually.

There are a variety of reasons people till, and a variety of things that it helps, as well as hurts. Its a quite contentious issue.

So far as weeds go - if you think of tillage, it will incorporate all vegetative matter back into the soil and you end up with a clean dirt surface to plant in. Tillage in particular is useful for two reasons here - tilling is a method of quickly incorporating amendments into the root zone of plants - those amendments may be a green manure cover crop, animal manure, lime, etc. Tilling also increases new surface area of soil to air, resulting in a massive kill of soil bacteria. This "bloom" of bacteria increases nitrogen availability.

This also churns up all of the weed seeds that were buried in the soil, and you will quickly get weeds in a tilled surface as they now have ideal growing conditions, where before they were buried in the dirt too deeply.

So you still get weeds with tillage. The reason Roundup resistant crops were developed, is to allow the farmer to spray glycophosphate broadly, and kill off these weeds without killing the desired crop.

I think hindsight is always 20/20. Maybe the path you are on is exactly the right one for you, you never know.

"agree"

Exactly my point. I understand what you are saying - but in conversation, my reaction is much more like the parent comment, it sounds like an entitled POV. Many people who say such things, in my anecdotal experience, feel they have a right to the wealth, and may not have agreement.

because the people that actually own the assets need to agree for this to be ok.

I don't think Free Speech has ever meant being required to publish others speech. Freedom of the press was meant to ensure you can say what you wish via pamphlets or starting your own newspaper, wherein you own the method of speech. That is why it was fundamental to Free Speech.

One has never been able to compel a publisher to publish them.

You may have a different concept, but to my way way of thinking that has always been the connection between the First Amendment and Free Speech.

regarding property, the addition of a prenuptial or postnuptial rider to the main marriage contract makes it quite flexible and negotiable. I guess without you using more words, I won't understand what the actual specific concern is.

Without the contract of some sort in place, its not so different than operating a business without a contract. You may think you know the outcome of an interaction, but without a contract its completely unknown in actuality.