UK Prime Minister responds immediately, cancels vacation.
US President Obumbles takes a day to reply, returns to vacation.
GFY, you useless idiot
Thanks for the news update, friend. I'm not sure what that has to do with a "quote" from the G.W. Bush administration from ten years ago, but I guess you needed to stick it (and your incredibly sweet ad hominem) somewhere.
As an aside, I recommend looking up "non-sequitur." Have a great day!
Didn't Obama say when he was senator that if he became president, that he wouldnt take any vacations?
I don't know. If it's true, I'm sure you can find some reference to satisfy you. Have fun!
Perhaps it was the same speech where he maybe said that, if elected, he would personally have sex with every child under ten years of age in the US. Or the time he might have explained that he was running for President so he could "make all dem crackers pay for "steppin' on his fly kicks!" Or maybe it was during the speech when he possibly said that he was "going to give the US to the people who deserved it most, the cannibalistic Kenyan Marxists who raised him to destroy America from the inside.
Wow! Spouting bullshit is really easy! I'm starting to see why folks love to bash Obama for ridiculous things. When you don't care about honesty or accuracy, you can pretty much say anything!
For pity's sake, there are so many things that are actually true which put the President (and most other politicians) in a negative light, why bother to make things up? Oh right. That would require actually doing two minutes worth of research. That's way too much work. Better just to make stuff up -- the more ridiculous, the better. Carry on.
You don't know me, so you have no idea what "people like" me are about.
Would you be happy if he said "People who behave like you just did"?
LK
Absolutely. All I did was call him on his ridiculous assertion and condescending tone. If that's what "people who behave like me" are about, I'm all over it.
if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs
falls short. Please try again.
Wow. I have the balls to admit I might be incorrectly remembering something, and you decide to use that to take a pot shot against me?
People like you are why some people are incapable of admitting they might be wrong.
You don't know me, so you have no idea what "people like" me are about. You made an outrageously incorrect statement and attempted to bolster your argument by an "appeal to authority" (your civics class back when schools actually taught something). What I said was based on what *you* wrote.
You were completely off-base and didn't even bother to check to see what the truth was before making an argument not only that you were right, but that you were right because some authority taught you better than everybody else. That's unkind at best and deliberately nasty at worst. Now you're upset with me because I called you on it?
While I didn't need to do so, I just now went ahead and found this in less than two minutes with a google search for "US federal vs local law enforcement"
Perhaps I was a bit harsh in pointing out your (as you say) inadvertent error. I would point out that you were at least as harsh on others with your claim that you know better than everyone else.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I understand that you dislike our current President and wish to tarnish his image. I'm not real fond of him either. But making incorrect statements to bolster an attack on him doesn't help your cause, IMHO.
I care about this issue too and am disgusted by the horrendous abuses of our public "servants." However, before I make disparaging statements and beat everyone over the head with them, I try to ensure that they are, in fact, correct statements. You might try that some time.
WTF is with all you idiots bitching about Obama's vacations. Reagan only played eight rounds of golf? Well gee, I guess Obama should be more hard working, like Reagan, right?
Reagan: 335 vacation days in 8 years = 41 days per year
Obama: 129 vacation days in 5.5 years = 23 days per year. (shit...I get more vacation days than that)
Yep, Obama...what a slacker. He also took fewer days than either GW Bush or GHW Bush (but more than Clinton).
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actorsand you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
our friends are very busy out there creating new realities. They don't have time for that "fact" stuff.
By the way, the President of the US is THE top of the Executive branch - meaning HE is in charge of ALL the police around the country - if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs).
Shame on you Obama. And Double shame for being a Black guy and NOT doing something.
Bzzt! Wrong. Thanks for playing. The POTUS is the head of the Executive Branch of the *Federal Government.* He's also the Commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. He is in charge of the Department of Justice (the FBI, the ATF, etc.) and the Army, Navy, etc.
He is not in any chain of command the includes local or state police forces. The closest he *could* come to that is to federalize the National Guard (which is equivalent to a state militia), which has been done from time to time (notably in Arkansas to block the state government from halting enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education decision).
The POTUS cannot legally give orders to local or state police, which are civilian organizations answerable to the municipal and state governments that raise and fund them, and not the Federal government. The only tools that the Federal government has to affect local police is litigation and withholding federal grants to police organizations. You'll note that this author of the linked article is decidedly not a fan of Federal power over police.
if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs
6 cases is FAR from proving your point. "innocent until proven guilty"... that alone sounds like it is stacked in favor of the defendant. Not to mention all the rules on how you obtain evidence. And how you actually were noticed to begin with. I could go on... but that can't compete with your 6 examples. >_>
I probably shouldn't be feeding you, but most of those links (you obviously didn't read them) refer to studies discussing the unfairness of the US criminal justice system WRT to prosecutorial discretion/abuse and plea bargaining and not specific cases.
Here's the payment scheme I'd like to propose - the fund manager gets to keep 40% of every dollar earned above and beyond the return garnered by the appropriate index benchmark fund. Period.
I can make the averages, and the fees at Vanguard are low. I'm willing to pay you handsomely to beat the averages - but not to loose.
Great! Send me a prospectus. I can be reached at/dev/null.
money managers who charge a percentage of money under management have a strong incentive to maximize your returns, as it maximizes their profits as well.
True, and the best way to maximize the return is for the fund manager to invest in a high risk crap shoot. If the gamble pays off, they get their fee, and attract lots of new investors. If it doesn't pay off, then hey, it wasn't their money. This is exactly what high-fee managers do. They run multiple funds, make risky investments, then shut down the funds where the gamble fails, and advertise and promote the funds where it pays off. This gives investors the illusion of success, when on average, they would be much better off investing in a low fee index fund.
"Past performance is no guarantee of future performance."
This rule is an understatement. Past performance is not even an indicator of future success. Fund managers that have done well in the past, are no more likely to do well in the future than predicted by random chance. There is no evidence that their past success was due to anything other than luck. There is no rational reason to pay someone to gamble on your behalf.
You're quite correct. Although I think we're talking about different scenarios. You're talking about independently marketed investment funds, while I'm talking about licensed financial advisers managing portfolios of assets (which may include securities, index funds, investment funds as well as other financial instruments) on a client-by-client basis.
Anybody that thinks that high fees are buying high performance is delusional.
A reasonable point. Often (as is evidenced by the links you provided), higher fees are associated with organizations which maximize their profits at their customers' expense. My point was most certainly not "you should find a money manager who charges you more! They're the ones who will make you the most money!" My point was that money managers who charge a percentage of money under management (regardless of what that percentage might be) have a strong incentive to maximize your returns, as it maximizes their profits as well.
That said, my point about returns is still valid. If (and, as you correctly point out, that's a big if) you are being charged a certain percentage and are receiving a certain return, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible for someone to pay a higher fee and get an even higher return. How does that disclaimer go again? "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance."
The truth is that regardless of how someone manages (or pays someone else to manage) their assets, they should keep a close eye on them and make sure they are maximizing their returns. Making the point that, in the aggregate, higher fees don't necessarily translate into higher returns, is useful and should be factored into investment decisions.
However, each person needs to make their own decisions and those decisions may or may not track with the graph. It's in that decision space that the aphorism generally (and incorrectly) attributed to PT Barnum is proven correct every single day.
Why should it be a % of the money under management is $200 somehow twice as hard to manage as $100, or do they guarantee your money so if they lose it they will pay you back? No, so the risk is all yours.
You may say $1,000,000,000 is harder than managing $100, not sure but if it is, is it 10,000,000 times harder? Its interesting since they fund managers tend to under perform the market, so they are worse than just blindly picking stock.
I get your point. However, it seems to me that charging a percentage of money under management makes a lot of sense. If the manager increases the value of your portfolio, their profit increases. Which makes your self-interest their self-interest.
Such an arrangement provides the relatively honest money manager with a strong incentive to make more money for you.
Yes. If I wanted to spend a significant amount of my time watching the markets and moving my assets around, i could, potentially, increase the value of my portfolio to outperform the typical money manager. At the same time, I would have to pay someone to move those assets around, so there is a cost there as well. It's a calculation -- how much will I have to pay to move those assets around, plus how much time will I have to spend monitoring the markets and researching particular investments? And further, how much is my time worth? That needs to be weighed against the returns, not from a typical money manager, but from *your* money manager.
I could also spend two or three hours at the laundromat washing my own clothes. It would certainly be cheaper. However, I made the calculation that I'd rather pay extra to have the laundromat staff wash and fold my clothes for me, so I can spend my time doing other things -- and the premium I pay for the extra time is worth it to me.
That brings me back to the self-interest bit. If I pay a money manager a percentage of the money under management, they have a strong incentive to maximize my returns, as it improves their bottom line. And if they give me reasonable (again, that's a subjective determination) returns, it's a win-win all around.
All that said, the value/cost calculation is a subjective one, and one person's subjective calculation is likely different than another's.
Gross overstatement isn't the same thing as "talking out of your ass". And I'm not even sure that it was a gross overstatement, though it is clearly not true of *all* financial services companies.
That said, it's also true that there are many "honest police". But somehow the honest police never inform on the dishonest ones. Similarly, the "ethical" financial services companies don't campaign to get the rules changed that enable the unethical ones to prosper to the point where they dominate the industry. I understand that in the case of the police, each individual may have his life depend on support by any other, which may partially mitigate their reluctance. I don't understand, however, what is equivalent in the financial services sector.
A reasonable point. I guess my reaction was more to the tone of the whole post (angry, as if the poster had been scammed -- which is certainly likely), rather than the phrase I singled out. Perhaps I should have used less inflammatory language.
As to your point about the lack of effort on the part of "ethical" FS companies not advocating needed reforms, I couldn't agree more. A mitigating factor might be that many of the "unethical" FS companies hold significant power to harm other companies which might prefer a more ethical marketplace.
The staggering lack of ethics or conscience in pursuit of ever more profit makes me want to hurl. And before someone starts accusing me of being a Marxist shill, I would point out that I am fully integrated into our capitalist system and have no problem with people making profits. What I'd prefer is that those making profits do so on a level playing field (you know, that whole "equality of opportunity" thing).
And while I do see the value in providing financial services, changes in the legal (tax and regulatory) framework (in the US at least) over the past 30 years or so have given large players undue advantage.
Those changes have been wrought by politicians and regulators who are beholden to the self-same players who have benefited from them. That won't change until the outsized influence of money is removed from our political system.
My nest egg is managed by a firm who (like many firms) charge a standard fee based on the amount of money under management.
If that fee is more than 0.1%, then you are still getting screwed.
You're 226.3% correct, sir. Because if I use a firm who charges 0.05% and gives me a 3% return, that's better than a firm that charges 1% and gives me a 10% return. I'm so glad to have your wonderful advice. May I turn over all my assets to you so you can manage them for me?
They are driven by commissioned sales; which means the salesperson's will try to sell you things to boost their commissions and NOT what's best for you - especially when it comes to shit like Index and Variable Annuities.
I agree that some (perhaps even most) in the financial services sector are ethically challenged. However, I know from my own experience that not all are driven by commissions. My nest egg is managed by a firm who (like many firms) charge a standard fee based on the amount of money under management. No commissions or other charges are charged for any transactions.
In a nutshell, you're talking out of your ass. Stop stinking up the place.
In case you're feeling a bit dense today, I believe the author meant tiny bit by volume, not mass, since the expansion of the Universe concerns volume.
You are very welcome.
Not feeling particularly dense at the moment, but thanks for asking! Your point did get to me read TFA, though.
So I'm left with something of a quandary. If the two statements above are correct, that dark energy is 68% (more by other estimates) of the universe by density, and "uniformly fills otherwise empty space," and volume "is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a... shape occupies" that brings us to the question, how much "otherwise empty space" there is in the universe? Quite a bit as I understand it. Much, much more than non-empty space, AFAIK.
Since I am (apparently) much denser than dark energy, perhaps you could explain how it is that, by mass, dark energy is ~68% of the universe and is uniformly spread across otherwise empty space (the vast majority of the *volume* of the universe), anyone could consider that to be a "tiny bit?"
It's entirely possible that I'm missing something obvious. If so, there's definitely a "whoosh!" going on over here. I suppose it's possible that there was much less dark energy (if it's an inherent property of space-time, that could explain it) at and shortly after the big bang than there is now, which I guess could, for some values of "much less" be "a tiny bit."
However, (and again, I am not a cosmologist) we don't really understand "dark energy" except for its effect increasing the speed of the expansion of the universe, so I'm not sure how anyone could make such a statement with a high confidence.
Now I imagine the police and authorities already have the powers to ask for the details of anyone on the web already, its just a time consuming process that many just don;t bother - not unless it gets really bad, and/or affects someone in the public eye (ie us ordinary plebs will not get the cops to do anything about online abuse). Making the process easier doesn't affect anyones rights as the police already have that power. I just hope that making it easier would make them use it more effectively (not forgetting that any prosecution still has all the judicial checks in place to go anywhere) or at least remind the trolls that they can be held accountable for what they say online just as if they'd said it to someone's face.
The appropriate way would be getting a warrant from a judge. I realize that it's just oh so inconvenient, but we have this little thing here in the US called the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Since you (apparently) are unaware of either its existence, its strictures or both, I'll post it here for your reference:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What you suggest violates pretty much every provision of the amendment. What is more, government actions to identify or act against those whose speech is unpopular (even when it's nasty, hurtful and insensitive) is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Again, I'll post it here for your reference and highlight the relevant parts:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [emphasis added]
Freedom isn't necessarily safe, nor is it necessarily always roses and chocolates for everyone. In order to protect and preserve the core freedoms of the US system (which we're not doing very well these days, IMHO), we need to be tolerant of those with whom we disagree, even when they're, as you put it, "idiots who spout rape and death threats against someone" and "sad little individuals who obviously find an outlet for their internal impotence by being "big men" on the internet and making these threats."
If the police (or other government folks) can trash those folks' (however repulsive they may be) free speech and privacy rights, they can do so to everyone, and that's unacceptable.
I find it disgusting that some people choose (for whatever reason) to use hateful, nasty, insulting or idiotic speech on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter). Misogynistic stuff makes me especially mad (and I'm not a woman, BTW), but unless there is a credible threat and/or real risk of harm (e.g., stalking, incitement to violence, etc.), no action should be taken by the government to stop it, IMHO.
I quoted Louis Brandeis (US Supreme Court Justice from 1916-1939) in my earlier post as follows:
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." [emphasis added]
I agree and take that to mean that the jerks who troll or harass on the Internet should be drowned out by the voices of the rest of us. One of the key concepts here is the Marketplace of Id
I assumed the trolls we're talking about are the ones who are a bit more obnoxious than just saying "Bing is the best search engine ever, I use it and so should you". The ones who are issuing rape and death threats on twitter, for example.
Point taken. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here, but the folk you're talking about (assuming the threats you refer to are credible) aren't "trolls," they're would-be rapists and murderers.
IMHO, there's a big difference between a troll seeking to piss off or harass folks with inflammatory images or speech and a psycho- or socio-pathic individual making credible threats against someone's life, health or property.
I disagree that we should implement police-state tactics which degrade the rule of law and what little privacy we have left by giving unfettered (read: warrantless and/or covert) access to law enforcement. If there's a credible threat, a search warrant should be requested from and issued by the appropriate judicial authority. Allowing law "enforcement" groups full access to server logs and network traffic reports is a recipe for clamping down on freedom of expression and abuse of power.
Slashdot Mirror
ISIS beheads US journalist Nick Foley.
UK Prime Minister responds immediately, cancels vacation.
US President Obumbles takes a day to reply, returns to vacation.
GFY, you useless idiot
Thanks for the news update, friend. I'm not sure what that has to do with a "quote" from the G.W. Bush administration from ten years ago, but I guess you needed to stick it (and your incredibly sweet ad hominem) somewhere.
As an aside, I recommend looking up "non-sequitur." Have a great day!
Didn't Obama say when he was senator that if he became president, that he wouldnt take any vacations?
I don't know. If it's true, I'm sure you can find some reference to satisfy you. Have fun!
Perhaps it was the same speech where he maybe said that, if elected, he would personally have sex with every child under ten years of age in the US. Or the time he might have explained that he was running for President so he could "make all dem crackers pay for "steppin' on his fly kicks!" Or maybe it was during the speech when he possibly said that he was "going to give the US to the people who deserved it most, the cannibalistic Kenyan Marxists who raised him to destroy America from the inside.
Wow! Spouting bullshit is really easy! I'm starting to see why folks love to bash Obama for ridiculous things. When you don't care about honesty or accuracy, you can pretty much say anything!
For pity's sake, there are so many things that are actually true which put the President (and most other politicians) in a negative light, why bother to make things up? Oh right. That would require actually doing two minutes worth of research. That's way too much work. Better just to make stuff up -- the more ridiculous, the better. Carry on.
The issue isn't that you disagreed with his assertion, he was obviously incorrect. The issue is that you were an obnoxious twat about it.
When he said "people like you", I read it as "obnoxious twats".
LK
Thanks! That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day!
Have a great day and keep up the good work!
I prefer beastie boys
That works. Thanks for the link. Although given the subject matter, The Clash number is a bit more relevant. That said, No Sleep Till Brooklyn!
Yuck. Sorry. That's what I get for just grabbing the first link on the google search. Here's a better one.
I prefer beastie boys
That works. Thanks for the link. Although given the subject matter, The Clash number is a bit more relevant. That said, No Sleep Till Brooklyn!
You don't know me, so you have no idea what "people like" me are about.
Would you be happy if he said "People who behave like you just did"?
LK
Absolutely. All I did was call him on his ridiculous assertion and condescending tone. If that's what "people who behave like me" are about, I'm all over it.
As such, your appeal to authority:
if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs
falls short. Please try again.
Wow. I have the balls to admit I might be incorrectly remembering something, and you decide to use that to take a pot shot against me? People like you are why some people are incapable of admitting they might be wrong.
You don't know me, so you have no idea what "people like" me are about. You made an outrageously incorrect statement and attempted to bolster your argument by an "appeal to authority" (your civics class back when schools actually taught something). What I said was based on what *you* wrote.
You were completely off-base and didn't even bother to check to see what the truth was before making an argument not only that you were right, but that you were right because some authority taught you better than everybody else. That's unkind at best and deliberately nasty at worst. Now you're upset with me because I called you on it?
While I didn't need to do so, I just now went ahead and found this in less than two minutes with a google search for "US federal vs local law enforcement"
Perhaps I was a bit harsh in pointing out your (as you say) inadvertent error. I would point out that you were at least as harsh on others with your claim that you know better than everyone else.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I understand that you dislike our current President and wish to tarnish his image. I'm not real fond of him either. But making incorrect statements to bolster an attack on him doesn't help your cause, IMHO.
I care about this issue too and am disgusted by the horrendous abuses of our public "servants." However, before I make disparaging statements and beat everyone over the head with them, I try to ensure that they are, in fact, correct statements. You might try that some time.
Regardless, have a lovely evening!
Thanks for that link. Now I know my rights (all 3 of them).
My pleasure. Always happy to share.
WTF is with all you idiots bitching about Obama's vacations. Reagan only played eight rounds of golf? Well gee, I guess Obama should be more hard working, like Reagan, right?
Reagan: 335 vacation days in 8 years = 41 days per year Obama: 129 vacation days in 5.5 years = 23 days per year. (shit...I get more vacation days than that)
Yep, Obama...what a slacker. He also took fewer days than either GW Bush or GHW Bush (but more than Clinton).
Don't bother. These guys have learned their lessons from the G.W. Bush Administration:
our friends are very busy out there creating new realities. They don't have time for that "fact" stuff.
... and they don't care about your rights.
My what?
Yes, it's dated. And yes, it's a British band. But yes, it's relevant.
By the way, the President of the US is THE top of the Executive branch - meaning HE is in charge of ALL the police around the country - if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs).
Shame on you Obama. And Double shame for being a Black guy and NOT doing something.
Bzzt! Wrong. Thanks for playing. The POTUS is the head of the Executive Branch of the *Federal Government.* He's also the Commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. He is in charge of the Department of Justice (the FBI, the ATF, etc.) and the Army, Navy, etc.
He is not in any chain of command the includes local or state police forces. The closest he *could* come to that is to federalize the National Guard (which is equivalent to a state militia), which has been done from time to time (notably in Arkansas to block the state government from halting enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education decision).
The POTUS cannot legally give orders to local or state police, which are civilian organizations answerable to the municipal and state governments that raise and fund them, and not the Federal government. The only tools that the Federal government has to affect local police is litigation and withholding federal grants to police organizations. You'll note that this author of the linked article is decidedly not a fan of Federal power over police.
As such, your appeal to authority:
if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs
falls short. Please try again.
6 cases is FAR from proving your point. "innocent until proven guilty"... that alone sounds like it is stacked in favor of the defendant. Not to mention all the rules on how you obtain evidence. And how you actually were noticed to begin with. I could go on... but that can't compete with your 6 examples. >_>
I probably shouldn't be feeding you, but most of those links (you obviously didn't read them) refer to studies discussing the unfairness of the US criminal justice system WRT to prosecutorial discretion/abuse and plea bargaining and not specific cases.
'Tis better to remain silent...
Here's the payment scheme I'd like to propose - the fund manager gets to keep 40% of every dollar earned above and beyond the return garnered by the appropriate index benchmark fund. Period.
I can make the averages, and the fees at Vanguard are low. I'm willing to pay you handsomely to beat the averages - but not to loose.
Great! Send me a prospectus. I can be reached at /dev/null.
money managers who charge a percentage of money under management have a strong incentive to maximize your returns, as it maximizes their profits as well.
True, and the best way to maximize the return is for the fund manager to invest in a high risk crap shoot. If the gamble pays off, they get their fee, and attract lots of new investors. If it doesn't pay off, then hey, it wasn't their money. This is exactly what high-fee managers do. They run multiple funds, make risky investments, then shut down the funds where the gamble fails, and advertise and promote the funds where it pays off. This gives investors the illusion of success, when on average, they would be much better off investing in a low fee index fund.
"Past performance is no guarantee of future performance."
This rule is an understatement. Past performance is not even an indicator of future success. Fund managers that have done well in the past, are no more likely to do well in the future than predicted by random chance. There is no evidence that their past success was due to anything other than luck. There is no rational reason to pay someone to gamble on your behalf.
You're quite correct. Although I think we're talking about different scenarios. You're talking about independently marketed investment funds, while I'm talking about licensed financial advisers managing portfolios of assets (which may include securities, index funds, investment funds as well as other financial instruments) on a client-by-client basis.
If I'm misunderstanding you, please correct me.
...The defendant always as the advantage in US criminal law.
That's hilarious! I wish I had mod points this is definitely a +5 Funny!
Some altcoins are actually interesting (eg huntercoin has a way to mine by playing a bomberman type game).
Geez. And I thought I was easily amused!
Because if I use a firm who charges 0.05% and gives me a 3% return, that's better than a firm that charges 1% and gives me a 10% return.
Funds that charge higher fees DO NOT give better returns.
Higher Fees Don't Mean Higher Returns, Study Finds 24% of Active Mutual Fund Managers Outperform the Market In every single time period and data point tested, low-cost funds beat high-cost funds Morningstar Study Says High Fees Are Bad for Investment Performance
Anybody that thinks that high fees are buying high performance is delusional.
A reasonable point. Often (as is evidenced by the links you provided), higher fees are associated with organizations which maximize their profits at their customers' expense. My point was most certainly not "you should find a money manager who charges you more! They're the ones who will make you the most money!" My point was that money managers who charge a percentage of money under management (regardless of what that percentage might be) have a strong incentive to maximize your returns, as it maximizes their profits as well.
That said, my point about returns is still valid. If (and, as you correctly point out, that's a big if) you are being charged a certain percentage and are receiving a certain return, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible for someone to pay a higher fee and get an even higher return. How does that disclaimer go again? "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance."
The truth is that regardless of how someone manages (or pays someone else to manage) their assets, they should keep a close eye on them and make sure they are maximizing their returns. Making the point that, in the aggregate, higher fees don't necessarily translate into higher returns, is useful and should be factored into investment decisions.
However, each person needs to make their own decisions and those decisions may or may not track with the graph. It's in that decision space that the aphorism generally (and incorrectly) attributed to PT Barnum is proven correct every single day.
Why should it be a % of the money under management is $200 somehow twice as hard to manage as $100, or do they guarantee your money so if they lose it they will pay you back? No, so the risk is all yours.
You may say $1,000,000,000 is harder than managing $100, not sure but if it is, is it 10,000,000 times harder? Its interesting since they fund managers tend to under perform the market, so they are worse than just blindly picking stock.
I get your point. However, it seems to me that charging a percentage of money under management makes a lot of sense. If the manager increases the value of your portfolio, their profit increases. Which makes your self-interest their self-interest.
Such an arrangement provides the relatively honest money manager with a strong incentive to make more money for you.
Yes. If I wanted to spend a significant amount of my time watching the markets and moving my assets around, i could, potentially, increase the value of my portfolio to outperform the typical money manager. At the same time, I would have to pay someone to move those assets around, so there is a cost there as well. It's a calculation -- how much will I have to pay to move those assets around, plus how much time will I have to spend monitoring the markets and researching particular investments? And further, how much is my time worth? That needs to be weighed against the returns, not from a typical money manager, but from *your* money manager.
I could also spend two or three hours at the laundromat washing my own clothes. It would certainly be cheaper. However, I made the calculation that I'd rather pay extra to have the laundromat staff wash and fold my clothes for me, so I can spend my time doing other things -- and the premium I pay for the extra time is worth it to me.
That brings me back to the self-interest bit. If I pay a money manager a percentage of the money under management, they have a strong incentive to maximize my returns, as it improves their bottom line. And if they give me reasonable (again, that's a subjective determination) returns, it's a win-win all around.
All that said, the value/cost calculation is a subjective one, and one person's subjective calculation is likely different than another's.
Gross overstatement isn't the same thing as "talking out of your ass". And I'm not even sure that it was a gross overstatement, though it is clearly not true of *all* financial services companies.
That said, it's also true that there are many "honest police". But somehow the honest police never inform on the dishonest ones. Similarly, the "ethical" financial services companies don't campaign to get the rules changed that enable the unethical ones to prosper to the point where they dominate the industry. I understand that in the case of the police, each individual may have his life depend on support by any other, which may partially mitigate their reluctance. I don't understand, however, what is equivalent in the financial services sector.
A reasonable point. I guess my reaction was more to the tone of the whole post (angry, as if the poster had been scammed -- which is certainly likely), rather than the phrase I singled out. Perhaps I should have used less inflammatory language.
As to your point about the lack of effort on the part of "ethical" FS companies not advocating needed reforms, I couldn't agree more. A mitigating factor might be that many of the "unethical" FS companies hold significant power to harm other companies which might prefer a more ethical marketplace.
The staggering lack of ethics or conscience in pursuit of ever more profit makes me want to hurl. And before someone starts accusing me of being a Marxist shill, I would point out that I am fully integrated into our capitalist system and have no problem with people making profits. What I'd prefer is that those making profits do so on a level playing field (you know, that whole "equality of opportunity" thing).
And while I do see the value in providing financial services, changes in the legal (tax and regulatory) framework (in the US at least) over the past 30 years or so have given large players undue advantage.
Those changes have been wrought by politicians and regulators who are beholden to the self-same players who have benefited from them. That won't change until the outsized influence of money is removed from our political system.
My nest egg is managed by a firm who (like many firms) charge a standard fee based on the amount of money under management.
If that fee is more than 0.1%, then you are still getting screwed.
You're 226.3% correct, sir. Because if I use a firm who charges 0.05% and gives me a 3% return, that's better than a firm that charges 1% and gives me a 10% return. I'm so glad to have your wonderful advice. May I turn over all my assets to you so you can manage them for me?
They all suck.
They are driven by commissioned sales; which means the salesperson's will try to sell you things to boost their commissions and NOT what's best for you - especially when it comes to shit like Index and Variable Annuities.
I agree that some (perhaps even most) in the financial services sector are ethically challenged. However, I know from my own experience that not all are driven by commissions. My nest egg is managed by a firm who (like many firms) charge a standard fee based on the amount of money under management. No commissions or other charges are charged for any transactions.
In a nutshell, you're talking out of your ass. Stop stinking up the place.
In case you're feeling a bit dense today, I believe the author meant tiny bit by volume, not mass, since the expansion of the Universe concerns volume.
You are very welcome.
Not feeling particularly dense at the moment, but thanks for asking! Your point did get to me read TFA, though.
Since IANAP, perhaps I'm a bit confused, but as I understand it, dark energy "can have such a profound effect on the universe, making up 68% of universal density, only because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space."
What is more, volume "is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a substance (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) or shape occupies or contains."
So I'm left with something of a quandary. If the two statements above are correct, that dark energy is 68% (more by other estimates) of the universe by density, and "uniformly fills otherwise empty space," and volume "is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a ... shape occupies" that brings us to the question, how much "otherwise empty space" there is in the universe? Quite a bit as I understand it. Much, much more than non-empty space, AFAIK.
Since I am (apparently) much denser than dark energy, perhaps you could explain how it is that, by mass, dark energy is ~68% of the universe and is uniformly spread across otherwise empty space (the vast majority of the *volume* of the universe), anyone could consider that to be a "tiny bit?"
It's entirely possible that I'm missing something obvious. If so, there's definitely a "whoosh!" going on over here. I suppose it's possible that there was much less dark energy (if it's an inherent property of space-time, that could explain it) at and shortly after the big bang than there is now, which I guess could, for some values of "much less" be "a tiny bit."
However, (and again, I am not a cosmologist) we don't really understand "dark energy" except for its effect increasing the speed of the expansion of the universe, so I'm not sure how anyone could make such a statement with a high confidence.
Please, feel free to school me.
From TFA, "As it turns out, we live almost in the Goldilocks case, with just a tiny bit of dark energy thrown in the mix ...
Umm...70+% of the universe is "just a tiny bit"?
Now I imagine the police and authorities already have the powers to ask for the details of anyone on the web already, its just a time consuming process that many just don;t bother - not unless it gets really bad, and/or affects someone in the public eye (ie us ordinary plebs will not get the cops to do anything about online abuse). Making the process easier doesn't affect anyones rights as the police already have that power. I just hope that making it easier would make them use it more effectively (not forgetting that any prosecution still has all the judicial checks in place to go anywhere) or at least remind the trolls that they can be held accountable for what they say online just as if they'd said it to someone's face.
The appropriate way would be getting a warrant from a judge. I realize that it's just oh so inconvenient, but we have this little thing here in the US called the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Since you (apparently) are unaware of either its existence, its strictures or both, I'll post it here for your reference:
What you suggest violates pretty much every provision of the amendment. What is more, government actions to identify or act against those whose speech is unpopular (even when it's nasty, hurtful and insensitive) is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Again, I'll post it here for your reference and highlight the relevant parts:
Freedom isn't necessarily safe, nor is it necessarily always roses and chocolates for everyone. In order to protect and preserve the core freedoms of the US system (which we're not doing very well these days, IMHO), we need to be tolerant of those with whom we disagree, even when they're, as you put it, "idiots who spout rape and death threats against someone" and "sad little individuals who obviously find an outlet for their internal impotence by being "big men" on the internet and making these threats."
If the police (or other government folks) can trash those folks' (however repulsive they may be) free speech and privacy rights, they can do so to everyone, and that's unacceptable.
I find it disgusting that some people choose (for whatever reason) to use hateful, nasty, insulting or idiotic speech on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter). Misogynistic stuff makes me especially mad (and I'm not a woman, BTW), but unless there is a credible threat and/or real risk of harm (e.g., stalking, incitement to violence, etc.), no action should be taken by the government to stop it, IMHO.
I quoted Louis Brandeis (US Supreme Court Justice from 1916-1939) in my earlier post as follows:
I agree and take that to mean that the jerks who troll or harass on the Internet should be drowned out by the voices of the rest of us. One of the key concepts here is the Marketplace of Id
I assumed the trolls we're talking about are the ones who are a bit more obnoxious than just saying "Bing is the best search engine ever, I use it and so should you". The ones who are issuing rape and death threats on twitter, for example.
Point taken. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here, but the folk you're talking about (assuming the threats you refer to are credible) aren't "trolls," they're would-be rapists and murderers.
IMHO, there's a big difference between a troll seeking to piss off or harass folks with inflammatory images or speech and a psycho- or socio-pathic individual making credible threats against someone's life, health or property.
I disagree that we should implement police-state tactics which degrade the rule of law and what little privacy we have left by giving unfettered (read: warrantless and/or covert) access to law enforcement. If there's a credible threat, a search warrant should be requested from and issued by the appropriate judicial authority. Allowing law "enforcement" groups full access to server logs and network traffic reports is a recipe for clamping down on freedom of expression and abuse of power.