Search results

And the reason why those no-doc loans became an issue is because of the oil price spike. Had oil prices not spiked, those loans would have continued to be paid. Have either of you ever heard of the distinction between "cause" and "effect"? You should check it out, it's really mind-blowing.

I can't help it if you don't read much. I'm only the least bit interested in real estate and I've heard the saying "Drive till you qualify", i.e. start from an urban area and just drive until you reach a place where you can get a mortgage. That equals longer commutes, which equals more income...

Obviously, you are free to believe whatever you want, but you don't make a convincing fact-based case for it, so I'm going to just go ahead and ignore it.

Given that one has limited time in which to learn the answers to the various questions of life, one needs to prioritize. If you are going to try to trade futures, which I assume is the OP's goal, knowing why the Euro and ES diverged after being positively correlated for some time is pretty low...

No, like all industries, the finance industry was and is limited by what its customers will pay for access to its products. Anyway, I conceded your 'point' about usury laws and submit that it is irrelevant. If I have a mortgage at 5% and I can't make the payment because I lost my job, the...

Fine, but even if you could go back and have usury laws in place in 2008, I doubt that much would have happened differently. What tipped the applecart was far more dependent upon the oil price spike than debt service costs. The latter became an issue because of the former.

Or vaccinations, organ transplants, antibiotics, refrigeration. The "simple life" is always an option for the individual. Seriously, no one is stopping you.

There was no other variation possible. If there were, it would have happened in another way. A trader has to trade the market that exists, not some possible market. And while correlations do seem to have persistence, they are not permanent, nor does their breakage seem to be predictable...

Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. According to the data I've seen, speculators who are profitable tend to take those profits from hedgers, so, if you're a hedger, maybe I have taken the opposite side of your trades in the past.

Someone who doesn't fight the market past the point of reason and knows when to admit he's wrong.

Someone has to be the realist. We can't all live in fantasy land.

I don't know, man, how much of the total debt outstanding has an interest rate over 21%? I doubt even 10% of it does. I think even revolving credit only averages 14-15% interest rates. Yeah, that's pretty steep but that debt is fairly risky, so obviously it's going to cost people more to use...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I already am one. I live in Manhattan and make above the average (not median) income here and have for nearly a decade after graduating from one of the perennially-ranked top 5 b-schools and have consulted to CEOs of some of the most well-known companies in America. I...

I was under the impression (I guess perhaps wrongly) that Bright had a specific strategy they wanted all their traders to use, but it sounds like you are bringing your own. Is that because of the personal relationship or is it that Bright actually does allow flexibility in this matter?

You disagree that there can never be a regulatory scheme which, in advance, anticipates all possible ways of overcoming that regulatory scheme? Sorry, but on this planet that is as close to an absolute truth as one can get. People with the proper incentives will always be able to overcome any...

Of course capitalism needs rules. There has never been a shortage of rules. The issue is that the rulemakers are less intelligent and motivated than the capitalists they regulate. So, the capitalists find ways around the rules, either by finding loopholes or by developing completely new...

Correlations come and go, so I wouldn't get too hung up on any one in particular.

It works for me, so maybe the problem is you. Did you ever consider that?

Glad to be of help. Getting over the hurdle to achieve this understanding of the market's logic vs. real-life logic was a key breakthrough for me. I don't put much stock in trading psychology, but to the extent that every trader brings something psychological to the game, this is the cornerstone...

OK, man, no need to get so excited.