I am Still Wearing Black In Mourning for Wall Street
klaatu...@gmail.com
Ah, yes.
Doesn't someone here owe me a dollar?
The Dow-Jones Industral Index is down um how many hundreds (or is that
"how many thousands") of points is the DJIA down since I mentioned my
little allegory about ripples across the pond undercutting the banks
on both sides?
Goodness gracious. Once again, it is with only the greatest sorrow
that I point out once again that "klaatu is always right".
And we don't even have the Hadron Supercollider to blame!
I'll let one of you people who's good with simple math (as you all
know by now, I can't even count to one on my nose) go ahead and work
it out for me.
It seems to me that given the five-day average decline of the Dow, if
continued at that rate (on average) from the present closing level, we
have only about 18 business days until the DJIA itself -- not the
delta -- is posted in negative numbers.
So, someone please work out the figures for me, and crosspost into
another thread titled "Truly Gothic Countdown Until the Day of Global
Economic Doom".
Why crosspost into alt.punk about this?
Why, because after the DJIA goes negative, we'll all be living in
Anarchy, Okay?
Jennie Kermode
> Goodness gracious. Once again, it is with only the greatest sorrow
> that I point out once again that "klaatu is always right".
I suspect we all saw this one coming. Makes no difference -
no-one would ever have listened to us because we're goths and we're
expected to be pessimistic.
> Why, because after the DJIA goes negative, we'll all be living in
> Anarchy, Okay?
The thing about that kind of anarchy is that most people won't
notice. Despite all their stresses about debt they'll continue to get on
with things pretty much as they've always done. It's okay as long as
enough people share the same delusions.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode
jen...@innocent.com
www.jenniekermode.com
Dag
> I'll let one of you people who's good with simple math (as you all
> know by now, I can't even count to one on my nose) go ahead and work
> it out for me.
>
> It seems to me that given the five-day average decline of the Dow, if
> continued at that rate (on average) from the present closing level, we
> have only about 18 business days until the DJIA itself -- not the
> delta -- is posted in negative numbers.
I'm pretty sure that, under current US law, stock prices (and thus the
DJIA) cannot go into negative values.
Anyway, assuming the DJIA continues giving the same avg return as it has
over the past 5 days, we'll be a bit below 5000 in 18 days time, and in
90 days time we'll be around the 250 mark.
If, on the other hand we linearly extrapolate the change in returns over
the past 5 days (since the DJ has not only been dropping each day, but
dropping faster and faster), then we'll be just under 1000 in 18 days
time and basically at zero in 60 days time.
Of course the above sort of 'predictions' is a classic example as to why
you should keep us mathematicians away from finance.
Dag
Peter H. Coffin
> Of course the above sort of 'predictions' is a classic example as to why
> you should keep us mathematicians away from finance.
In finance, one should never plot off then end of a curve. That way
leads to thin wallets. (;
--
"It's 106 light-years to Chicago, we've got a full chamber of anti-matter,
a half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing visors."
"Engage."
Dag
> On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:00:59 +0200, Dag wrote:
>> Of course the above sort of 'predictions' is a classic example as to why
>> you should keep us mathematicians away from finance.
>
> In finance, one should never plot off then end of a curve. That way
> leads to thin wallets. (;
But if I can't plot beyond the end of the curve then all my courses in
financial mathematics will be useless. Say it ain't so...
Dag
Endymion
Found it! I have no idea how to make a useful Google link, but it’s
post # 80 in the “Ookie Spookie Vs. Christmas” thread, from Dec. 13 of
last year:
"Define "implode", please. What numerical indicators would indicate
an
implosion to you?
"For instance, what will the Dow look like after an "implosion"? In
1929 it lost a third of its value in a few weeks, and another third
over the following twelve years. It lost about 30% of its value after
9/11, but the economy hardly "imploded". It's a bit over 13,000 these
days - shall we define an "implosion", then, as a Dow under, say,
6,000?
"Jimmy Carter popularized the infamous "Misery Index" of inflation
plus
unemployment. That number hasn't dipped under 6 since the Eisenhower
administration; it was 13.5 when Carter took office, 20.8 when he
left
office, 9.6 when the Gipper retired, and is 8.2 this year.
Unemployment in the US topped 30% during the Great Depression. So,
shall we define an "implosion" as a misery index over, say, 40?
"Currency values are also a good indicator of economic health.
There's
a lot of talk that the Ayrabs will move oil trading from dollars to
Euros and the dollar plummet. When the British Empire was at its
height, one pound sterling was worth 5 American dollars; by 1968 it
had dropped to half that. The obvious competitor to the dollar today
is the Euro, presently worth about $1.46. If the Euro goes to $3,
then, the decline of the US will be proportional to that of post-
Imperial Britain, but it seems to me an "implosion" would have to be
worse than that. Shall we define an "implosion" of the dollar, then,
to be an exchange rate of $5 to one Euro?"
So, our criteria are two or more of:
1) Dow Jones < 6,000
2) Unemployment + inflation > 40
3) Euro > $5
The current values are:
1) Dow Jones ~ 8450 and falling
2) Unemployment + inflation ~ 11.5 and stable or rising slowly
(unemployment 6.1% and rising, inflation 5.4% and falling)
3) Euro = $ 1.34 and possibly stabilizing?
So: you might have me on the Dow, but maybe not. It’s been so volatile
any speculation on the floor is for the moment pointless.
But nowhere close on the others. And the Dow alone simply doesn’t mean
as much as it once did, particularly in the 1920s. It's only a little
below its post-9/11 level now, and that didn't cause the End of
American Capitalism As We Know it.
> The Dow-Jones Industral Index is down um how many hundreds (or is that
> "how many thousands") of points is the DJIA down since I mentioned my
> little allegory about ripples across the pond undercutting the banks
> on both sides?
At the moment, about 4,800, or just over a third. Will presumably go
up to at least 40%.
> Goodness gracious. Once again, it is with only the greatest sorrow
> that I point out once again that "klaatu is always right".
Except you ain’t. We’re not seeing another Great Depression yet, not
even close, much less something even worse, so bad the country will
never recover. We’ve seen one measurement approach, but not reach
"implosion" levels. The others are looking reasonably good for the
moment.
You’re essentially calling the presidential race with 70% of the
precincts of a couple of east coast swing states in. A bit too early
to start popping corks and dropping balloons and confetti.
I will admit I’m less confident than before that that won’t happen,
but "less" is a relative thing. I’ll have to decide whether I’d give
it 5-1 or 10-1 against.
> And we don't even have the Hadron Supercollider to blame!
Yeah. Sure. Because it "broke." And "they’re not using it yet."
What sort of conspiracy theorist are you, man?
> It seems to me that given the five-day average decline of the Dow, if
> continued at that rate (on average) from the present closing level, we
> have only about 18 business days until the DJIA itself -- not the
> delta -- is posted in negative numbers.
Umm, yeah. There’s one eentsy little problem with that, and that is
that the one fundamental truth about the stock market is that you can
NEVER predict future events just by extrapolating past trends. It is
so, so much more complex than that. Foolish investors lose entire
fortunes like that.
There are still reasons for thinking it is likely to drop more, but
"because it dropped yesterday and the day before that" isn’t one of
them.
- Endymion
Satori
"Endymion" <disinte...@embarqmail.com> wrote in message
news:9c4a8bd2-38b8-4da5...@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
>3) Euro = $ 1.34 and possibly stabilizing?
Or possibly dropping. It's lost a lot of value against the dollar, recently.
-Satori
who hopes it drops more, since he's going to be exchanging some dollars for
euros in November. :)
Jennie Kermode
> who hopes it drops more, since he's going to be exchanging some dollars for
> euros in November. :)
Where are you planning to go, and might we persuade you to drop
by a certain seaside town in England just a little earlier?
Elder
"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk says...
> On 2008-10-10, Satori <dwis...@cox.net> wrote:
> > who hopes it drops more, since he's going to be exchanging some dollars for
> > euros in November. :)
>
> Where are you planning to go, and might we persuade you to drop
> by a certain seaside town in England just a little earlier?
>
> Jennie
>
>
probably the only Whitby I'm definatly going to would be extra cool for
me.
Jennie, when are you and the Glasgoths arriving this October?
I'm arriving Thursday late afternoon with "Quiet drinks" in the Little A
that night with some of the WGW forum members.
--
Carl Robson
Get cashback on your purchases
Topcashback http://www.TopCashBack.co.uk/skraggy_uk/ref/index.htm
Greasypalm http://www.greasypalm.co.uk/r/?l=1006553
Satori
"Jennie Kermode" <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrngf0vth.4lc...@laocoon.triffid.demon.co.uk...
> On 2008-10-10, Satori <dwis...@cox.net> wrote:
>> who hopes it drops more, since he's going to be exchanging some dollars
>> for
>> euros in November. :)
>
> Where are you planning to go, and might we persuade you to drop
> by a certain seaside town in England just a little earlier?
>
> Jennie
We're going on the GothCruise in the Mediterranean. Whitby's not in the
plans for this year. Hopefully next year.
Dag
Where in the Mediterranean are you headed? I might be able to give you
some pointers.
Dag
Panurge
> I suspect we all saw this one coming.
Which is why I sold half my Apple stock late last year. I'm still in
the hole (in fact, I'm back in the hole for an IRA account I launched in
*2000* and funded only once), but not by as much. And of course, I'm
not gonna *need* that money for a very long time (famous last words).
At least I've got a pretty strong cash position.
--
"He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
--Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
Satori
"Dag" <dwastberg@g_REMOVE_mail.com> wrote in message
news:gcqbb...@news1.newsguy.com...
The cruise itinerary is here: http://www.gothcruise.com/
Then we're going to spend about a week in Portugal and Spain.
Peter H. Coffin
Venice, Dubrovnik, Santorini, Tunis, Malaga, Casablanca, Lisbon are the
ports of call. I'm out of holiday for the year more or less, so I'll be
in to Venice only the second day prior to sailing, and out of Lisbon the
following morning. Dan and Kat were planning on rattling around the
Iberian penninsula some before heading home though, and would probably
appreciate some pointers.
--
Either way, it'll remind the clued that there's only one letter
difference between 'turkey' and 'turnkey'.
-- Mike Andrews
Jennie Kermode
> Jennie, when are you and the Glasgoths arriving this October?
As usual, on the Wednesday, though perhaps a couple of hours
later (for me, Stuart and Drew) than is generally the case, as we're
not leaving home until after I escape from my Current Issues in Social
Theory class.
> I'm arriving Thursday late afternoon with "Quiet drinks" in the Little A
> that night with some of the WGW forum members.
Heh. Good luck getting into the Little A on Thursday night. I'd
advise securing your space early.
~Fianna
"Jennie Kermode" <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrngf0vth.4lc...@laocoon.triffid.demon.co.uk...
>> who hopes it drops more, since he's going to be exchanging some dollars
>> for
>> euros in November. :)
>
> Where are you planning to go, and might we persuade you to drop
> by a certain seaside town in England just a little earlier?
Not making it up north this trip, I'm afraid. We're doing the Goth Cruise
thing, so we'll be in Italy, sailing around from Croatia to Greece, Northern
Africa and in to Portugal and then tramping around Portugal for a week or so
before heading in to Spain for a few days before heading back.
We'll be in NYC for a few days before heading off (assuming that's still the
cheapest way to deal with air, anyway), but I still haven't gotten the dates
for that. Depends on when it's cheapest to leave.
Elder
"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk says...
> Heh. Good luck getting into the Little A on Thursday night. I'd
> advise securing your space early.
>
I know you tend to go an meet mates rather than for the organised
events, but have you seen the fringe events this year?
http://wgw.topmum.co.uk/2008/09/19/whitby-fringe-events/
Shame the old "Main wrist band gets you into overspill too" thing seems
to have been stopped and everything has an additional price. It could
cost you an extra £40 with the wrong combo of sideshows.
klaatu...@gmail.com
> On Oct 9, 5:33 pm, klaatu.re...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Ah, yes.
>
> > Doesn't someone here owe me a dollar?
>
> Found it! I have no idea how to make a useful Google link, but it’s
> post # 80 in the “Ookie Spookie Vs. Christmas” thread, from Dec. 13 of
> last year:
<snips / // of good research finding good quotes>
> So, our criteria are two or more of:
>
> 1) Dow Jones < 6,000
>
> 2) Unemployment + inflation > 40
>
> 3) Euro > $5
>
> The current values are:
>
> 1) Dow Jones ~ 8450 and falling
>
> 2) Unemployment + inflation ~ 11.5 and stable or rising slowly
> (unemployment 6.1% and rising, inflation 5.4% and falling)
>
> 3) Euro = $ 1.34 and possibly stabilizing?
>
> So: you might have me on the Dow, but maybe not. It’s been so volatile
> any speculation on the floor is for the moment pointless.
Wowsers, looking at the posting date on this, and the subsequent
record "VIX" (volatility index) not to mention the raw-numbers multi-
time swings in the vicinity of 1000 points, I'd say your
understatement beats my overstatement, hands down. ;)
> But nowhere close on the others. And the Dow alone simply doesn’t mean
> as much as it once did, particularly in the 1920s. It's only a little
> below its post-9/11 level now, and that didn't cause the End of
> American Capitalism As We Know it.
But of course we're not looking at just the Dow, of course. Everyone
everywhere seems to be having a bad day all day for the last few
weeks, especially this last one. What really concerns me is the
interbank-credit freeze-up. Not to mention that the Credit Default
Swaps ("CDS") are effectively unvaluated. Lehman got bought up at 9.5
cents on the dollar and that seems to set the rate for everyone else.
And since everyone was piling onto that particular bit of unregulated
"leverage", things look bad. IIRC the "word out there" was that the
minimum leverage on that was at the very least 10:1, that 9.5 cents on
the dollar may be the _high_ "fair price" and the "real price" could
be lord-knows how low. The uncertainty is what's killing the business,
though everyone seems to want to put their last dollar into play...
except for the interbank credit folks. Dismal Science, indeed.
>
> > The Dow-Jones Industral Index is down um how many hundreds (or is that
> > "how many thousands") of points is the DJIA down since I mentioned my
> > little allegory about ripples across the pond undercutting the banks
> > on both sides?
>
> At the moment, about 4,800, or just over a third. Will presumably go
> up to at least 40%.
>
> > Goodness gracious. Once again, it is with only the greatest sorrow
> > that I point out once again that "klaatu is always right".
>
> Except you ain’t. We’re not seeing another Great Depression yet, not
> even close, much less something even worse, so bad the country will
> never recover. We’ve seen one measurement approach, but not reach
> "implosion" levels. The others are looking reasonably good for the
> moment.
Anyone want to pool some money and buy Iceland? Getting less expensive
by the day...
Damned sad, though, I rather liked all of the Islanders I ever met
online.
Look, I don't think it's actually possible to have "the Great
Depression" all over again. Same level of calamity, sure, but times
have changed and forms will be different.
For one, they didn't have the population pressures. Secondly, they
didn't have the resource-depletion issues although I suppose we could
somehow substitute in the Dust Bowl, but in the Dust Bowl they also
had ample energy/fuel even if they had temporarily destroyed
arability. Third, they didn't have the migration issues we have today,
which are as global as is the present crisis.
> You’re essentially calling the presidential race with 70% of the
> precincts of a couple of east coast swing states in. A bit too early
> to start popping corks and dropping balloons and confetti.
>
> I will admit I’m less confident than before that that won’t happen,
> but "less" is a relative thing. I’ll have to decide whether I’d give
> it 5-1 or 10-1 against.
Okay, you can keep your dollar for now, Mortimer. ;)
Then again, you never know, the next Hunt Brothers might be right
around the corner.
FWIW a certain alter-ego of mine once got hired as a temp after a
suspicious office fire that mysteriously almost destroyed only the
files on that particular case. Since the job description amounted to
holding sprinkler-soaked documents in front of a fan until they dried,
there was plenty of time to examine all of the print to make sure the
ink hadn't run. Fascinating reading, I tell you.
> > And we don't even have the Hadron Supercollider to blame!
>
> Yeah. Sure. Because it "broke." And "they’re not using it yet."
>
> What sort of conspiracy theorist are you, man?
Less demented than usual, thanks. Sad to say, I'm just no fun any
more.
> > It seems to me that given the five-day average decline of the Dow, if
> > continued at that rate (on average) from the present closing level, we
> > have only about 18 business days until the DJIA itself -- not the
> > delta -- is posted in negative numbers.
>
> Umm, yeah. There’s one eentsy little problem with that, and that is
> that the one fundamental truth about the stock market is that you can
> NEVER predict future events just by extrapolating past trends. It is
> so, so much more complex than that. Foolish investors lose entire
> fortunes like that.
Heh. "The stock market can continue to behave irrationally until long
after you've run out of capital."
>
> There are still reasons for thinking it is likely to drop more, but
> "because it dropped yesterday and the day before that" isn’t one of
> them.
No, as mentioned elsewhere, you daren't project of the tail end of a
curve that's a summary/average/median of a lot of other curves. Then
again, you can always draw an envelope and take pretty good best-
guesses off of that.
Personally I think it might get steady down around 700 or 7200 or so
and then very slowly fight its way back up with a positive DJIA gain
of 30 points being thought a good day, and a drop of 50 points on very
bad news being thought to be a bad day. Honestly, I expect the 1970s
all over again. Not exactly like being taken out and shot, but so
dolrum-y that you might really prefer the firing squad.
Inflation, IMHO, combined with massive shifts of where-we-make-things
realigning due to fuel costs, is likely to be our biggest problem.
Then again, we might actually see folks resurrecting the spirit of
Mack Reynolds, and possibly in time to do a genuine paradigm shift
that would work for almost everyone.
And as for you European folks who think I've gone all soft and commie
for actually recommending a sort of Technocratic Socialism, don't
start applauding just yet, however if anyone wants to explain to me
how it is that the Scandinavian countries have managed to work it,
that might be well-received and widely read.
klaatu...@gmail.com
Oi, Dag,
Are you sure you're not calculating on the basis of percentage drops
per day, instead of raw-number per day? You get a more hyperbolic
curve that way; a more raw-numbers based calculation gives you a more
linear and thus faster intercept fo the zero line, right?
If the DJIA even tried to go into negative numbers, I suspect that
Wall Street turns into a black hole and falls through the surface into
orbit slowly ingesting the planet. Faster rather than slower from that
point. See also the opening scenes from "the Happening" and raise the
numbers a few orders of magnitude.
Peter Constantine
> I know you tend to go an meet mates rather than for the organised
> events, but have you seen the fringe events this year?
>
> http://wgw.topmum.co.uk/2008/09/19/whitby-fringe-events/
>
> Shame the old "Main wrist band gets you into overspill too" thing seems
> to have been stopped and everything has an additional price. It could
> cost you an extra £40 with the wrong combo of sideshows.
As far as I know, the events happening at The Resolution all have free
admission so that may be an alternative for the cash strapped (...and
it's not far to stagger from The Little Angel or The Elsinore).
Bands at The Res:
Thursday: Devilish Presley
Friday: Octolab
Saturday: Attrition
Sunday: Lupine
Monday: a burlesque show(?)
x
Jennie Kermode
Let's hope the doorman believes that. With Scarborough
councillors prowling around, they're pretty restrictive when it comes to
small people, too.
> I know you tend to go an meet mates rather than for the organised
> events, but have you seen the fringe events this year?
> http://wgw.topmum.co.uk/2008/09/19/whitby-fringe-events/
I have now.
Some of them _are_ my mates.
That aside, whilst I'd be perfectly open to this sort of thing,
the problem is (and you'l see this for yourself) that _there_ _is_ _not_
_room_. The real reason why the wristband no longer gets you into
everything is that it's impossible to have extra people wandering around
when there's not enough room for all the non-Spa folk as it is. And
there's especially not room for me, since my disability means that I
need a seat. And even if one does get in, getting to the bar is nigh
impossible and the crush is quite unpleasant.
I understand that work is still progressing on getting
Flowergate opened up to the masses. I'd be quite happy to hang arund
outdoors like that (I can take my own seating there). It would be the
ideal solution, as I'd like the chance to meet more new people and I'd
like new netgoth attendees and my various shy readers (who often ask
about this online) to be able to find me.
Jennie Kermode
> Thursday: Devilish Presley
Aye. I'm thinking of giving this one a go if there is any hope
of access.
> Monday: a burlesque show(?)
Dude - with Preacher! ;)
Dag
> Oi, Dag,
>
> Are you sure you're not calculating on the basis of percentage drops
> per day, instead of raw-number per day? You get a more hyperbolic
> curve that way;
Extrapolation based on anything other than rate of return would be even
more useless. Saying a market dropped 100 points won't tell you
anything unless you know what level it dropped from. A drop from 12000
to 11900 is not the same as a drop from 200 to 100. Markets don't drop
by 'points' they drop by percentages, so calculating based on anything
else is quite pointless.
> a more raw-numbers based calculation gives you a more
> linear and thus faster intercept fo the zero line, right?
Sure, but if your goal is to get the numbers to go to zero as quickly as
possible, why limit yourself to a linear extrapolation. Use a 4th
degree polynomial extrapolation over the same data and you'll pass zero
after only 2 days, and would be equally 'correct'.
> If the DJIA even tried to go into negative numbers,
As it stands a negative DJIA would be a legal impossibility, as it would
mean negative stock prices. One of the basic points of stock ownership
is that the individual owners are not personally responsible for company
debt. Any changes to that principle would basically destroy the stock
market and with it the ability for companies to operate within the US.
Dag
Rob
> The cruise itinerary is here: http://www.gothcruise.com/
>
> Then we're going to spend about a week in Portugal and Spain.
If you get the chance I would recommend a visit to Quinta da Regaleira
in Sintra, not far from Lisbon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinta_da_Regaleira
I was there earlier this year. It’s an estate built about a hundred
years ago by a coffee magnate who had a keen interest in all things
Masonic. The house itself is amazing, and the grounds are filled with
towers and follies with names like 'Terrace of the Celestial Worlds'.
He even excavated a system of underground tunnels linking some of
these together, which you can explore if you take your own flashlight.
There are plenty of other interesting things in Sintra – it seems to
have been the favoured spot for rich eccentrics to indulge their
fantasy projects, so it’s definitely worth a day trip at least.
Rob
klaatu...@gmail.com
> klaatu.re...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Oi, Dag,
>
> > Are you sure you're not calculating on the basis of percentage drops
> > per day, instead of raw-number per day? You get a more hyperbolic
> > curve that way;
>
> Extrapolation based on anything other than rate of return would be even
> more useless. Saying a market dropped 100 points won't tell you
> anything unless you know what level it dropped from. A drop from 12000
> to 11900 is not the same as a drop from 200 to 100. Markets don't drop
> by 'points' they drop by percentages, so calculating based on anything
> else is quite pointless.
Ah, looked at one way, I suppose that might be so.
However, if you start out at 12000 and you drop on-average 500 points
a day, one sees that the first day it drops 500 points, it's a lesser
percentage drop than on the 5th day it drops 500 points, right?
Think of it as a rather large car hurtling down the motorway with a
certain rate of kilometeres/litre consumption. Certainly the mileage
improves a bit as the fuel is consumed; the vehicle weights a bit
less. You can't easily predict at which exact spot in the freeway the
thing will run out of fuel. Yet you could likely predict along which
stretch of the highway you'll eventually have to get out and start
walking.
If you have a full fuel tank, you might think "oh, we're moving right
along, got a full tank". But if you don't ease up on the throttle,
you'll still be moving right along; you don't want to try to calculate
your speed by looking at the fuel gage. Maybe that would be a good
way to approximate the distance you've traveled or may expect to
travel. Estimating time-to-destination that way might not be the most
accurate approach, and indeed you might not have the fuel to actually
arrive. But I wander far afield...
> > a more raw-numbers based calculation gives you a more
> > linear and thus faster intercept fo the zero line, right?
>
> Sure, but if your goal is to get the numbers to go to zero as quickly as
> possible, why limit yourself to a linear extrapolation. Use a 4th
> degree polynomial extrapolation over the same data and you'll pass zero
> after only 2 days, and would be equally 'correct'.
>
> > If the DJIA even tried to go into negative numbers,
>
> As it stands a negative DJIA would be a legal impossibility, as it would
> mean negative stock prices. One of the basic points of stock ownership
> is that the individual owners are not personally responsible for company
> debt. Any changes to that principle would basically destroy the stock
> market and with it the ability for companies to operate within the US.
Ah, my point more or less is exactly that. Talking about "DJIA in
negative numbers" is a less-snarky way of saying "they'd have to pay
me to take their stock".
In any case, whether legally possible or not, that's when the whole
system comes to a crashing halt.
Looked at another way, Friday's swings both ways amounting to 1000
points variation would be supportable -- however scarily so -- in a
market where the DJIA was up there around 15000. If the DJIA is down
around 8000 or so, the scariness is proportionately larger. Nobody at
this time seems to have publicly analyzed what happened Friday,
whether or not it was a combination of investor panic flight on the
one hand combining with bargain-hunter purchases on the other hand.
Additionally, what looked like bargain-hunter purchases might have
been just last-minute short-covering, in which case someone (party or
parties) is sitting on a pile of cash or massive credit at a liquid
institution; if it's actually someone (party or parties) pumping in
cash to buy bargains, someone went long over the weekend which in this
market is either a stroke of pure genius thinking in the extreme
longterm, or someone who has gone quite mad.
Personally, if I were insanely wealthy and was more determined to
harvest everyone else's wealth who dared to expose it, I would have
been shorting the markets since the oil price peak over the summer,
and got out of shorting oil about the time it got down to $110/bbl or
so and then started shorting the financials, and in fact that's about
the picture that we see. Of course, that provides an alternative to
the idea that the market is just adjusting itself to the final
collapse of the housing bubble and the beginning of the end for credit-
default swaps intending to cover losses in the mortgage-backed
securities. This alternative (practically hallucinatory) view thus
might propose that the interbank-credit freeze-up is more about banks
being rightly afraid to expose any capital to the markets at all, on
the theory that there is something very big and hungry and amorphous
just sitting there waiting for the least sign of weakness, in which
case it shorts the institution _with funds originating inside the
institution at risk_. Think of it as a boardroom putsch but done with
capital instead of proxy votes.
Actually, it's probably good that I'm not insanely wealthy, because
I'm in a bit of a yearlong snit and might very well try something like
that.
TenshiKurai9
> On 2008-10-12, Peter Constantine <const...@xsublime.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Monday: a burlesque show(?)
>
> Dude - with Preacher! ;)
He's short./He smells./He looks like Orson Welles./Preacher!. .
.Preacher!. . .
(Scottish guy whose name I never got was chanting that at Preacher on my
first night at the spring Whitby.)
-TK9, She's short./She's Hull./She's got nothing in her skull./That
chick!. . .That chick!. . .(same guy later to someone else after the
drinking in Ara's cottage.)
Elder
"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk says...
> The real reason why the wristband no longer gets you into
> everything is that it's impossible to have extra people wandering around
> when there's not enough room for all the non-Spa folk as it is.
>
and not turn away people as the venue is "at capacity" when they still
had unsold tickets, and only had enough tickets for the venue capacity.
It turns out, upon investigation that this april it wasn't fake
wristbands but bouncers who couldn't count out caused the problem.
~Fianna
> If you get the chance I would recommend a visit to Quinta da Regaleira in
> Sintra, not far from Lisbon:
Sintra's on the list for an overnight. Thusfar, we've planned a night in
Lisbon, next night in Sintra, next two in Evora and then either up to Porto
or someplace in between Evora and Porto for a night.
We'd also like to spend a night somewhere in the Douro valley on the way in
to Spain. Mmm, wine country.
~Fi, can't wait can't wait can'twait!!
Dag
> On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:56:49 +0200, Dag wrote:
>> Satori wrote:
>>> "Jennie Kermode" <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>>> news:slrngf0vth.4lc...@laocoon.triffid.demon.co.uk...
>>>> On 2008-10-10, Satori <dwis...@cox.net> wrote:
>>>>> who hopes it drops more, since he's going to be exchanging some dollars
>>>>> for
>>>>> euros in November. :)
>>>> Where are you planning to go, and might we persuade you to drop
>>>> by a certain seaside town in England just a little earlier?
>>>>
>>>> Jennie
>>> We're going on the GothCruise in the Mediterranean. Whitby's not in the
>>> plans for this year. Hopefully next year.
>> Where in the Mediterranean are you headed? I might be able to give you
>> some pointers.
>
> Venice, Dubrovnik, Santorini, Tunis, Malaga, Casablanca, Lisbon are the
> ports of call.
The only places I've been on that list are Santorini and Tunis.
Santorini has the whole quintessential Greek island thing down pat and
is pretty cool. I'm guessing you'll be docking in Thira(Fira). If
fighting with the crowds of tourists in Thira isn't you're thing I'd
recommend you walk 500 m to the next town over called Firostefani.
Check a map, but it's basically off the boat, up the cliff and then walk
left out of Thira and after a few hundred meters you'll be in
Firostefani. It's much calmer and less crowded. It also has the better
(and also more expensive) restaurants if you're looking for good food.
If you have some more time to kill then grab a taxi to the town of Oia
(pronounced Ia), a smaller and very picturesque town. Grabbing a boat
to the volcano is also kind of fun if you don't fancy walking around town.
In Tunis I haven't seen much of the actual city. Carthage is quite cool
if you're into seeing old piles of stones that once where houses. There
is also the Bardo Museum which is huge Turkish palace full of a huge
pile of random amazing Roman and Byzantine mosaics. Highly recommended
if you like seeing old stones layed out to look like things.
> Dan and Kat were planning on rattling around the
> Iberian penninsula some before heading home though, and would probably
> appreciate some pointers.
Don't know much about the Iberian peninsula, having only been to
Barcelona. Granada and Alhambra is however the place I hear most
people recommend very highly when it comes to looking at pretty things.
When it comes to eating good food San Sebastian is a place that people
seem to mention a lot.
Dag
Endymion
> On Oct 12, 6:54 am, Dag <dwastberg@g_REMOVE_mail.com> wrote:
> > As it stands a negative DJIA would be a legal impossibility, as it would
> > mean negative stock prices. One of the basic points of stock ownership
> > is that the individual owners are not personally responsible for company
> > debt. Any changes to that principle would basically destroy the stock
> > market and with it the ability for companies to operate within the US.
>
> Ah, my point more or less is exactly that. Talking about "DJIA in
> negative numbers" is a less-snarky way of saying "they'd have to pay
> me to take their stock".
>
> In any case, whether legally possible or not, that's when the whole
> system comes to a crashing halt.
You misunderstand. It's not impossible as in "it would be so
catastrophic we can't imagine it," it's a legal impossibility as in it
there is no mechanism by which it could occur from within the system.
Dag isn't saying "if that happened the whole system would come to a
crashing halt," he's saying "only if certain fundamental changes to
the legal status of a corporation were first imposed by the
government, which no one will do because there's no reason for it and
it would destroy our entire economic system independent of the current
crisis, could negative stock prices occur." Negative value for stock
is like negative temperature on the Kelvin scale. The market can't
'try" to go negative any more than a molecule can "try" to have
negative temperature. Zero is an absolute limit. When a stock hits
zero the holder's equity in the corporation is all gone and there's
nothing left to drop.
> Personally, if I were insanely wealthy and was more determined to
> harvest everyone else's wealth who dared to expose it, I would have
> been shorting the markets since the oil price peak over the summer,
> and got out of shorting oil about the time it got down to $110/bbl or
> so and then started shorting the financials, and in fact that's about
> the picture that we see.
Up to a point, but see this: http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2008-10-12-Stocks-short-selling_N.htm
> Of course, that provides an alternative to
> the idea that the market is just adjusting itself to the final
> collapse of the housing bubble and the beginning of the end for credit-
> default swaps intending to cover losses in the mortgage-backed
> securities.
Not really. The entire world financial market is much too broad for
shorting to have caused the drop rather than just exacerbating it,
without there having been a much bigger concerted effort than anything
we've seen evidence of. One or two or even a dozen gamblers can't bust
the casino. And if there's a big and hungry and amorphous entity
waiting out there, it's probably also ten-tentacled, purple,
invisible, estivating, and hiding behind the Moon.
- Endymion
Endymion
> On Oct 10, 5:09 pm, Endymion <disintegrat...@embarqmail.com> wrote:
> > So, our criteria are two or more of:
>
> > 1) Dow Jones < 6,000
>
> > 2) Unemployment + inflation > 40
>
> > 3) Euro > $5
>
> > The current values are:
>
> > 1) Dow Jones ~ 8450 and falling
>
> > 2) Unemployment + inflation ~ 11.5 and stable or rising slowly
> > (unemployment 6.1% and rising, inflation 5.4% and falling)
>
> > 3) Euro = $ 1.34 and possibly stabilizing?
>
> > So: you might have me on the Dow, but maybe not. It’s been so volatile
> > any speculation on the floor is for the moment pointless.
>
> Wowsers, looking at the posting date on this, and the subsequent
> record "VIX" (volatility index) not to mention the raw-numbers multi-
> time swings in the vicinity of 1000 points, I'd say your
> understatement beats my overstatement, hands down. ;)
I don’t see how you can justify that - you’re still only looking at
one measure, and so far the others haven’t seen anything near that
sort of change. We still have a ways to go before the finish line, of
course.
> > But nowhere close on the others. And the Dow alone simply doesn’t mean
> > as much as it once did, particularly in the 1920s. It's only a little
> > below its post-9/11 level now, and that didn't cause the End of
> > American Capitalism As We Know it.
>
> But of course we're not looking at just the Dow, of course. Everyone
> everywhere seems to be having a bad day all day for the last few
> weeks, especially this last one.
You’re still only talking about securities markets. What I meant is
that *stocks* don’t mean as much as they once did - not that they
aren’t important, but the conditions of 1928 don’t exist today - in
particular, there was a mortgage problem then and there is today, but
in 1928 most banks also had massive loans out, often several times
their reserve capital, to individual investors who had put that money
into stocks, and those loans all became worthless the moment the
market crashed. That factor is absent today. You’re seeing in cases
like Wachovia and WaMu that the banks have enough bad assets to cause
them devastating liquidity problems and put them on the market at
bargain prices, but not enough that they have negative worth several
times over.
> > Except you ain’t. We’re not seeing another Great Depression yet,
not
> > even close, much less something even worse, so bad the country will
> > never recover. We’ve seen one measurement approach, but not reach
> > "implosion" levels. The others are looking reasonably good for the
> > moment.
>
> Anyone want to pool some money and buy Iceland? Getting less expensive
> by the day...
Talk to me when you can say “buy the UK” or “buy Japan”. Iceland has
gone bust because it was insufficiently diversified. As Iceland goes,
so goes... a lot of herring and not much else.
> Look, I don't think it's actually possible to have "the Great
> Depression" all over again. Same level of calamity, sure, but times
> have changed and forms will be different.
Okay, then, but what other measures would you offer that you think
indicate a total systemic collapse like you’ve been predicting rather
than just grave systemic problems? Or are you capable of appreciating
the difference?
(Although it appears below that you may now be revising your forecast
from “total systemic collapse” to “a decade or so of a lousy economy,”
which is sufficiently different to take as an admission that your
prior forecast was not just off the mark but off the map.)
What it boils down to is that you hate the system, want to see it
collapse because it would vindicate decades of your silly (and
consistently wrong) “sky-is-falling” bombast, and all you can offer to
try and spin the current crisis into something orders of magnitude
worse is more hype and bombast.
> Third, they didn't have the migration issues we have today,
> which are as global as is the present crisis.
So this boils down to another anti-immigrant screed? Them dam’
wetbacks is behind it all?
> > Umm, yeah. There’s one eentsy little problem with that, and that is
> > that the one fundamental truth about the stock market is that you can
> > NEVER predict future events just by extrapolating past trends. It is
> > so, so much more complex than that. Foolish investors lose entire
> > fortunes like that.
>
> Heh. "The stock market can continue to behave irrationally until long
> after you've run out of capital."
Yes, it *can*. I’m not denying that it is *possible*. You can also
lose fifty times in a row predicting coin flips. What I’m denying is
that anything you’ve offered indicates that it is *likely*. You’re
extrapolating recent statistical trends into the ground and that is no
less foolish than the people who 18 months ago were extrapolating the
exact same statistics into the heavens.
> > There are still reasons for thinking it is likely to drop more, but
> > "because it dropped yesterday and the day before that" isn’t one of
> > them.
>
> No, as mentioned elsewhere, you daren't project of the tail end of a
> curve that's a summary/average/median of a lot of other curves. Then
> again, you can always draw an envelope and take pretty good best-
> guesses off of that.
No, you really can’t, because the stock market isn’t a physical
trajectory or a mathematical abstract, it’s the product of human
psychology and that’s the only way you can even begin to understand
it. And anyway you're not doing that. You offer nothing half that
sophisticated. You're just straight-up projecting the same rate of
change until it hits zero.
> Personally I think it might get steady down around 700 or 7200 or so
> and then very slowly fight its way back up with a positive DJIA gain
> of 30 points being thought a good day, and a drop of 50 points on very
> bad news being thought to be a bad day. Honestly, I expect the 1970s
> all over again.
And in less than 24 hours you’ve been proven wrong.
Let’s be clear about this. I’m not saying today’s rally indicates
anything *other* than that your predictions are completely worthless.
I have no idea where the market will be on Friday or even tomorrow, or
what the inflation rate will be in 2010. But then, neither do you. All
you’ve got is empty hype.
- Endymion
Satori
> Not really. The entire world financial market is much too broad for
> shorting to have caused the drop rather than just exacerbating it,
> without there having been a much bigger concerted effort than anything
> we've seen evidence of. One or two or even a dozen gamblers can't bust
> the casino. And if there's a big and hungry and amorphous entity
> waiting out there, it's probably also ten-tentacled, purple,
> invisible, estivating, and hiding behind the Moon.
Mars. The Giant Invisible Purple Squid hides behind Mars. Such blasphemy...
TenshiKurai9
> On Oct 11, 8:17 pm, klaatu.re...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Anyone want to pool some money and buy Iceland? Getting less expensive
>> by the day...
>
> gone bust because it was insufficiently diversified. As Iceland goes,
> so goes... a lot of herring and not much else.
And a music scene that music geeks drool over. . .
-TK9, if I was in Iceland, the music would be why.
TenshiKurai9
> Endymion wrote:
And if there's a big and hungry and amorphous entity
>> waiting out there, it's probably also ten-tentacled, purple,
>> invisible, estivating, and hiding behind the Moon.
>
>
> Mars. The Giant Invisible Purple Squid hides behind Mars. Such blasphemy...
May the GIP come forth and teach Endymion the error of his ways.
-TK9
Dag
> On 2008-10-13, Endymion <disinte...@embarqmail.com> wrote:
>> On Oct 11, 8:17 pm, klaatu.re...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Anyone want to pool some money and buy Iceland? Getting less expensive
>>> by the day...
>> Talk to me when you can say ?buy the UK? or ?buy Japan?. Iceland has
>> gone bust because it was insufficiently diversified. As Iceland goes,
>> so goes... a lot of herring and not much else.
>
> And a music scene that music geeks drool over. . .
Of course, as a general rule, the quality of any given musicians output
is inversely proportional to how content he or she is with life. So
with a little luck this could do wonders for Iceland's music scene.
Dag
TenshiKurai9
Let's buy Iceland!
-TK9
Satori
Someone was suggesting the other day that Canada take it over:
http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=868982
What say ye, Canada goths? Want a new province?
A Post-Fascinet Reconstruction
> On Oct 11, 8:17 pm, klaatu.re...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> And in less than 24 hours you’ve been proven wrong.
>
> Let’s be clear about this. I’m not saying today’s rally indicates
> anything *other* than that your predictions are completely worthless.
> I have no idea where the market will be on Friday or even tomorrow, or
> what the inflation rate will be in 2010. But then, neither do you. All
> you’ve got is empty hype.
>
Have we had anything but empty hype for the past ten years?
Anyhow, if you have a spare twenty or thirty grand in your pillow,
now's the time to start sleeping on feathers.
-F
Axel
>TenshiKurai9 wrote:
>> Let's buy Iceland!
>
>Someone was suggesting the other day that Canada take it over:
>http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=868982
>
>What say ye, Canada goths? Want a new province?
I think it's a wonderful idea.
Then we just need to take Greenland off the Danes & we've got all
Polar Bears will be ours.
--
Axel... ...Kallisti
"Everything is true, even false things" -Malaclypse the Younger
"How can that be?" "Don't ask me, man, I didn't do it."
<ax...@eol.ca>
Satori
> On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:43:57 -0700, Satori <dwis...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> TenshiKurai9 wrote:
>>> Let's buy Iceland!
>
>> Someone was suggesting the other day that Canada take it over:
>> http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=868982
>>
>> What say ye, Canada goths? Want a new province?
>
> I think it's a wonderful idea.
> Then we just need to take Greenland off the Danes & we've got all
> Polar Bears will be ours.
>
We still have Alaska. Of course, Sarah Palin might declare open season
on Polar Bears...