Well Hell, AOL, Netscape, Lycos, CMGI, Spyglass....oh God...the memories are making me Ill...
Nah, Facebook and Google are in everything nowadays....they ain't going away for a while. And Amazon? I order crap from Amazon, cheap, and it's on my doorstep in a few hours... Are you kidding?
Bit harsh surely?
When I "invested" (in reality, bet) some money last year, it wasn't a particularly well considered endeavour. I just had some money sitting doing nothing that was better off elsewhere. It took me about 4 minutes to "invest" it.
I didn't have to drive to a farm. Which is lucky since I have no car.
I didn't have to buy any eggs. Which is lucky because they have a fairly short shelf life and I don't know many people who don't already have reliable sources for buying eggs.
This all suits me well, because even thinking about buying the eggs would've take me more than the 4 minutes it took me to invest. I'm only ~7% up per year, but my RoI when considering time invested is very good.
If you take your argument to its logical conclusion, why are any of us posting here, we should all be out selling eggs? 😉
As an aside - I live in the UK - I have some shares (stocks), gold and crypto. All have gone up compared to when I put money in, but I always have to remind myself that all is not what it seems - all have gone up in £ terms, so I have insulated myself from losing money while the £ has lost value. Have I really gained any value though, apart from avoiding this loss? Harder to know.
How do you define "stability" here? i.e. what makes us say it's more stable than the swiss franc?
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There is absolutely no doubt that it is the most used reserve currency and most used for paying for fossil fuels, and that these two are inextricably linked - not disputing that. I was just wondering what your definition of "stability" is.
Some might argue that it's "price stability" and is statistically measurable e.g. "price fluctuation when compared to something perceived as stable, such as gold".
Others might say it's more qualitative e.g. "people always seem happy to lap up 30 year bonds even in times of crisis". Etc.
Some might argue that it's "price stability" and is statistically measurable e.g. "price fluctuation when compared to something perceived as stable, such as gold".
Others might say it's more qualitative e.g. "people always seem happy to lap up 30 year bonds even in times of crisis". Etc.
The sheer number of USD vs Swiss francs in the World Market is probably a lot of it.
A company with 100,000 shares would be quite more volatile than a company with 100,000,000 shares, right?
A company with 100,000 shares would be quite more volatile than a company with 100,000,000 shares, right?
Depends how much each share costs, how successful the company is, how diverse their market share is, how quickly they are able to reposition if things change etc. - the absolute quantity of shares issued is probably lowest down the list of all in terms of determining stability, in my view.
But I agree with you, USD is winning in terms of market share.
But I agree with you, USD is winning in terms of market share.
From a quick check, 1,671 Billion USD in circulation vs 69 billion Swiss franc in circulation (sorry, 2018 data), and 1 USD = 1 Swiss Franc today
Yep, but if we're talking price stability, the dollar has inflated around (I don't know the exact figure) 2% year on year whereas CHF has stayed around 0%. If the price of the dollar has changed more, does that make it less stable? You might argue that fluctuation in value over time should only be viewed as "unstable" if that change was unplanned, and in both these cases the 2% / 0% were targeted by the respective central banks.
If power starts to shift away from the dollar as world reserve currency then I'd probably put my bets on CHF over USD during the transition time. If a BRICS OPEC teamup happens this is not inconceivable, but I'm not knowledgeable about these things, just speculating.
If power starts to shift away from the dollar as world reserve currency then I'd probably put my bets on CHF over USD during the transition time. If a BRICS OPEC teamup happens this is not inconceivable, but I'm not knowledgeable about these things, just speculating.
You should.
FWIW, I AM "selling eggs"; in this case Guitar Amplifiers and speakers.
I buy U$1000 worth of wood - tolex - aluminum sheet - paint - components - adhesives - magnets - magnet wire - lamination - etc. and turn it into U$4000 of product, which I sell within a Month, 2 months tops if Economy is slow.
I´d suicide if I only got $50 one year later.
Compare it to getting U$3000 within 1-2 Months.
OF COURSE, it takes working - dedication - knowledge - salesmanship
Emphasis on working and thinking (which is the core of the other tasks).
Yep it takes time - mine is valuable (to me) and finite. I spend much of it working, so when I'm not I'd rather put a grand in some shares and then head to the pub, rather than selling eggs. If investing was my job, I'd expect to be making more than $50 a year.
Value is subjective. I think you are the best judge of how you want to spend your time and resources, and that your subjective assessment of value is clearly the one most important to you. Selling guitar amplifiers and speakers might not be the very most profitable use of your time in raw money terms, but it does bring you pleasure, and I bet people enjoy what they get buy from you, so it is immensely valuable. However I think it's fair to expect others to have a different assessment of how best to spend their time/resources.
Value is subjective. I think you are the best judge of how you want to spend your time and resources, and that your subjective assessment of value is clearly the one most important to you. Selling guitar amplifiers and speakers might not be the very most profitable use of your time in raw money terms, but it does bring you pleasure, and I bet people enjoy what they get buy from you, so it is immensely valuable. However I think it's fair to expect others to have a different assessment of how best to spend their time/resources.
I dunno... the way things are going, may SiTs and KT120s will be what we used to trade in oil.
As in, 0.-01 SiT per barrel of gold... you know, because they're not making any more.
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN AOLR'S WERE ALLOWED TO HIT THE INTERNET USENET FORUMS IN '96?
None of them knew what "caps" meant. When running rn ( news reader in Unix ) you knew who was POSTING from AOL and everybody else.
My eyes still hurt.
Most aluminum producers have their own hydroelectric plants.
And there are coal and nuclear as alternate energy sources.
Oil is too expensive.
Even rail roads are shifting from diesel locos to electrics, if the wires are there, and there is enough traffic.
And there are coal and nuclear as alternate energy sources.
Oil is too expensive.
Even rail roads are shifting from diesel locos to electrics, if the wires are there, and there is enough traffic.
Where? In North America there is NO way you can electrify the trains... distances are too vast and the power loss would be incredible. North American trains are mostly diesel-electric hybrid.
And, sure.. you are going to use coal and nuclear to power the machines that build hydroelectric plants and coal and nuclear.
You do know that the Green Lobby in California is against coal, and hydroelectric and nuclear (OMG!). While we're sitting on huge reserves of oil and natural gas?
Heck, I drove by the La Breat Tarpits last Saturday, do you know they pump oil within the City of LA?
Don't laugh... if they have their way, they will call my Class A amps "audio weapons of mass electrical destruction" and they will take them away. Only Class D and Bose soundbars for those people.
Actually, the USA has the largest oil / gas reserves, but like tar sand, a lot of it is difficult or expensive to extract.
And converting the rail roads to electric means a big investment, which would have to be justified on various parameters.
Here in India, most long distance passenger traffic is by rail, and also container traffic.
We even have coal being transported for power stations by rail wagons..
The pattern in you part of the world is different, mostly freight on the railways.
California has enough water for hydro electric plants?
There were fines for watering the lawns and forest fires some time back...
No coal, hydro, nuclear...leaves only gas as the clean electric power source.
With secondary waste heat recovery, and ammonia turbines / water desalinization, exhaust temp at about 65C, quite viable.
Remember Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe noir novels?
They have been pumping oil in LA since then, one of the oldest sources in the world.
And converting the rail roads to electric means a big investment, which would have to be justified on various parameters.
Here in India, most long distance passenger traffic is by rail, and also container traffic.
We even have coal being transported for power stations by rail wagons..
The pattern in you part of the world is different, mostly freight on the railways.
California has enough water for hydro electric plants?
There were fines for watering the lawns and forest fires some time back...
No coal, hydro, nuclear...leaves only gas as the clean electric power source.
With secondary waste heat recovery, and ammonia turbines / water desalinization, exhaust temp at about 65C, quite viable.
Remember Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe noir novels?
They have been pumping oil in LA since then, one of the oldest sources in the world.
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OK, since we're off on a deep tangent
(1) California has plenty of water but it is grossly mismanaged. And we have not built dams nor increased the size of current ones. Instead, we are demolishing dams.
(2) The Green Lobby in San Francisco has its own water source... Hetch Hetchy. Read about it. They got their water, the rest of us can just water with Evian.
(3) In the US, long distance travel is by air or Interstate. Trains are mostly for freight. Only in the NE Coast do they have passenger trains of any real service as they have the population density and short distances. The rest of Amtrak is very expensive, slow and unreliable. I can drive 1200 miles from SoCal to Seattle in a 16 hour trip, 18 if it rains, 20 if I run into snow. One day in Spring/Summer/Fall. Two days in Winter.
(4) The California Water Resources Board... an unelected group, recently turned down a proposal to build a desalinization plant in Huntington Beach.. after ten years of permit hell. Why? the Green Lobby from San Franciskovich opposed it. They ignored the facts... they felt is was gonna be bad for something, they were not too specific, didn't have to be as the Board is politically corrupt.
(5) We recently shut down San Onofre.. a 2.2GW nuke plant. Diablo Canyon is slated for shutdown too. Both generate(d) 2.2GW of power, each. There are no plans to replace that, except to import the power from the NW and Arizona. The old "not in my backyard" way of environmental management.
(6) If you drive in Kern County, alongside the 5, you see 100 miles of oil pumps... you see oil pumps from Santa Maria all the way past Orange County.
(7) Our Western forest fires are due to mismanagement of the forests... the "Bambie" way of looking at the forests -oh so cute.. just like a Disney movie. Forest fires are a natural event in the West, the trees and forests need the underbrush cleaned out for healthy regrowth. If we don't want massive fires but still want healthy forests we should engage in large scale brush cleaning and periodic small, managed fires... but the Green Lobby won't allow that. Again, no facts, no science, just Gaia mumbo jumbo...
We don't have a "resources problem" as we are blessed with plentiful resources... we have a "political problem".
(8) We love Indian cuisine... very complex, deep flavors. Excellent with a cold beer.
There.
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The Norwegian bank DNB had their annual Skumle Grafer/"Scary Graphs" article for Halloween recently, this was one of them:
That is an impressively sharp dive for the strategic oil reserve!
AaaaaAAaaaahhHHHh! Please stop, I realize you are just mentioning it as an example, but I would like to avoid such foul language in this thread if possible.
Thank you in advance for understanding.
This just in...
Already on it.
Fear & despair = buy
Endless optimism & good times = sell
Edit:
This is provided you can tolerate a loss before eventually getting profit.
Already on it.
Fear & despair = buy
Endless optimism & good times = sell
Edit:
This is provided you can tolerate a loss before eventually getting profit.
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