Future exists because people want to hedge the risk and uncertainty of the future. Farmers want to know if they should plant wheat to corn for next year’s crop. Miller’s want to ensure a supply of wheat at a know price for next year. Everybody’s a winner. Sure there is some (well, a lot) market making / speculation, but it serves a fundamental economic purpose.
What’s the natural market here? Let’s say I think candidate’s economic policy is crazy and will cost me my job. What is the natural offsetting position? Who would want to hedge themselves against a booming economy?
Factor in that 2 conditions have to be met for the options to trigger. Factor in that most outcomes would have to be measured in years, not months. Factor in that the President’s policies are not the dominating force – external forces (World growth rates, Euro Crisis, Energy prices, etc.).
So it sound to me more like sports betting then option or futures trading. Granted there is some overlap between the 2. Want to place a bit on who will win next week’s game? There is action. This year’s super bowl? More action. Next year’s MLB – almost none – or at least not enough to give any price signal.
In your example you used Inflation as one benchmark. Well, I can do that now. Infant mortality – why would I want to take a bet on that?
To build on this, we know that when McAfee went public, John held about 100 million in stock.Taxes, time, bad investments, and interesting hobbies have probably dented that number big time. However, at one time, he was worth 100m.
Why focus on chart music when we should be focusing on music?
If a buy a Star Wars soundtrack, should I kick my money over to John Williams or the London Symphony Orchestra?
Face it – there are a lot of people who can write music but can’t carry a tune – see Bob Dylan. And there are a lot of people who can carry a tune but can’t write.
Not everybody can be a singer, songwriter, and business manager.
Classic Monopoly / Monopsony situation. When there is only 1 buyer (of labor) and only 1 seller (of labor), and negotiations break down, there are not a lot of options left on the table.
The company has only a single ace – declare bankruptcy. This will void all of the contracts and the bankruptcy judge can sort things out. The union has only a single ace card – call the company’s bluff.
It is like a giant game of chicken. Compare this to Somalia Pirates or your favorite sports franchise. Where is the hockey season this year? These deals are hard to do.
That is true – but there is still room for improvement. Under the current system with high costs and large variable awards you get Lawsuit Lotto - file frivolous lawsuits until you lucky number arrives. On the other hand, legitimate suits with low payouts are ignored.
What you want the system to do is to quickly and consistently decided lawsuits – with damages high enough to compensate the victims, be a deterrent to future mischief – but not so high as to deter innovation.
Yes – they will check. My wife signed us up for a month of the wine club once – both of us work at locations that did not accept deliveries – so we had to trek out to the warehouse to pick up the wine. We did not sign up again.
Well, maybe. Think about the following scenario. Let us say you are a chip design firm that wants to get into server chips – we will call it ARM. You have 2 choices.
The first is to build your team up from scratch. Search the world over, recruit the engineers, move them to your headquarters (or wherever.). Hopefully you get the right mixture of people.
Or you could buy AMD. They already have design teams set up. Sure, you may lose 10% in a well-executed buy out – but that will leave enough core people to continue on.
You could substitute Samsung and graphic chips.
This, of course, makes huge assumptions about building a team from scratch vs. AMD team – but I think it is where you want to start.
You’re making the assumption that anaclitic ability is the primary determinate of matting success in humans. Normally, it’s not. You can find a few rare cases where it is – and the progeny of those cases tend to have higher rates of autism and aspeger – suggesting that there are tradeoffs.
Normally, a broader range of attributes are used to determine mating potential. The ability to dance is a much better determinate. The ability to process music (mental) in a coordinated fashion (mental / physical) over a long period of time (physical) demonstrates genetic fitness that is hard to fake.
The Force for IV-VI was a mystical force, having quasi Zen Buddhist elements. Now, that it has been explained (badly, IMHO) it is something less – pseudo-science at best. And now that we can put force abilities on a rational, objective standing – what does that add to the story? I have seen stories where the Jedi needs a boost to their power so they inject themselves with an extra shot of Midi-chlorians.
A parallel was ST:TNG particle of the week. First we need a particle to kick off the plot, then we need a pseudo-scientific explanation to get us out. I liked the fact that in Babylon 5 the Star Furies moved at the speed of plot.
Partly this is a revolt – I grew up with a lot of hard science fiction. If you want to push fake science to explore the human condition – great! I love those stories. But fake science for fake science – sigh. Kind of reminds me of Larry Niven’s “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” – you don’t want to look at your fake science too hard.
Personally, I would substituted “Star Wars fanatics” for “Star Wars Fan” and “Average Star Wars Fan” for “Studios”.
I consider myself an average fan. I have seen the films, read some of the comics books, played one of the games. I know enough to know that there is a vast pool of extended universe stuff, but I don’t have the time or energy to figure out the chaff from the quality.
The prior extended universe should not constrain or limit the writer from writing a good story. Respectful yes – but not bound to it. The expectation would be the midi-chlorians. That is an idea that should die.
Vulture capitalism is a subtype of private equity.
Private equity(PE) tend to be limited partnerships with a fixed horizon of 10 to 20 years. They tend to specialize.
Venture Capital are PEs that specialize in funding firms that are in start up mode. i.e., are young and not profitable. The idea is provided money and management experience and hit a home run.
Then there are the “distressed” and/or “turn-around” PEs. They will either 1. Come in and turn around the firm or 2. Dismantle the firm and sell it off for parts.
Bain Capital runs both types of funds. Warren Buffett does too. When he invested in Berkshire Hathaway is was in the declining cloth industry. For the next 50 years – well.
Obama got 50%, Rommey got 48%. I call that pretty darn close.
On the other hand, if we are talking about the electoral college – that something else. Everybody knew where CA, NY, TX, etc. where going to go. They left just a few swing states, OH, FL, etc. In these swing states Obama had a narrow lead – but he only had to win a few to win. If the swing states were fair coins (50/20) Obama would probably win – which is my Silver (who used polls instead of fair coins) - gave Obama over a 80% chance to win.
Which makes Silver’s so good. Eisenhower won by a far large percentage – both with the popular vote and the electoral vote. Simpler computer and maths but a simpler problem as well.
But this is almost the way it has to be done when you have a large population with many secular events – that is when the facts on the ground change.
You have a host of polls. Some have more rigor than others. Some are rolling (ask the same person 2 weeks apart.) Some have demographic data. Some are instant, some take a week to gather the data.
And during that time you have real events happening which is changing the game. Take the 1st debate where Rommey beat Obama. How much weight do you give to poll which spans the first debate, but is big and rigorous against a smaller, sloppier instant poll?
One has to make a subjective judgment based on knowledge of math, the strength and weakness of the various polls, experience, and wisdom. This is an issue for all social scientist who use statistics. It’s better than you intuition but there are limits.
Jor-El, as a brilliant scientist, knew that the yellow sun would give his child super powers.
Look, Superman been around for almost 75 years. During that time a lot of above average people have had these types of questions and the writers have answered them. Sometimes with poor science, sometimes they contradict themselves.
Superman’s ship traveled faster than light to get to Earth.
The explanation of all the kryptonite getting to Earth was that the ship created a wormhole to get from Krtyton to Earth and a fair amount of debris got sucked in and followed. Now, mind you, this was 90s comic books science. I don’t know what the start of the art is today.
To you and / or Europe, maybe he is not that extreme.
To America? Yes, he is. America’s center is further to the right, so even our centrist lefts seem right to them.
Or, better, yet, of the Democratic candidates who ran for President in 2004, name one that was more to the left? None. So, from a relative view point, he was the most extreme left candidate.
Absolute would be a different question – but would not be helpful on figuring out why our FPP voting method is delivering more extreme candidates.
Let me try to modify your position a little bit. First Past the Post should create what you are looking for – 2 centralist candidates – and in the US has mostly done so – until recently.
Which is where I come back to agree with you. Big money from narrow interest groups are pouring into the primaries. Thus hard left/right are dominating in recent cycles, causing more extreme candidates to win. Then, build on the fact that it is easier and safer to energize one’s core base then try to persuade the center.
It’s not volume – it is overcapacity. LCD manufacturing has high fixed costs – that is it is a capital intensive business.
A few years ago everybody built fab plants – and then the economy turned south so people stopped buying large screen TVs. (oversimplied, but.)
So, when there is overproduction one has 2 choices – mothball the entire plant (complete loss) or engage in a brutal wall of price cuts and attrition. The logical choice is price cuts and attrition (well, the logical choice would be to go back in time and not build the plant in the first place, but.)
In my county there are about 60 different voting districts that can occur due to various combinations at the Federal, County, and city level. And it is not always “pick 1 candidate”.
To break it down,
State wide we have Federal & State there are multiple first past the post elections. (FPP)
There are my Congressional district, State Senate, State repr, and county board. None of these districts are the same size. So that is 4.
I have a school board member for my ward and one that is voted at large, so 2 more.
I get to vote for 3 judges – unranked from a pool.
Nothing is happening this year at the city level, but when it does I need to vote for the mayor and city councilor (which is, once again, a non-overlapping district) using the instant vote runoff.
Regression testing is hard, expensive, and long in this type of situation. So yeah, ATMs have it easier and sometimes paper and pencil works.
Slashdot Mirror
Future exists because people want to hedge the risk and uncertainty of the future. Farmers want to know if they should plant wheat to corn for next year’s crop. Miller’s want to ensure a supply of wheat at a know price for next year. Everybody’s a winner. Sure there is some (well, a lot) market making / speculation, but it serves a fundamental economic purpose.
What’s the natural market here? Let’s say I think candidate’s economic policy is crazy and will cost me my job. What is the natural offsetting position? Who would want to hedge themselves against a booming economy?
Factor in that 2 conditions have to be met for the options to trigger. Factor in that most outcomes would have to be measured in years, not months. Factor in that the President’s policies are not the dominating force – external forces (World growth rates, Euro Crisis, Energy prices, etc.).
So it sound to me more like sports betting then option or futures trading. Granted there is some overlap between the 2. Want to place a bit on who will win next week’s game? There is action. This year’s super bowl? More action. Next year’s MLB – almost none – or at least not enough to give any price signal.
In your example you used Inflation as one benchmark. Well, I can do that now. Infant mortality – why would I want to take a bet on that?
To build on this, we know that when McAfee went public, John held about 100 million in stock.Taxes, time, bad investments, and interesting hobbies have probably dented that number big time. However, at one time, he was worth 100m.
Why focus on chart music when we should be focusing on music?
If a buy a Star Wars soundtrack, should I kick my money over to John Williams or the London Symphony Orchestra?
Face it – there are a lot of people who can write music but can’t carry a tune – see Bob Dylan. And there are a lot of people who can carry a tune but can’t write.
Not everybody can be a singer, songwriter, and business manager.
Heck, France blocked Pepsi buying Yopiat (yogurt) because of “national interest”. I would argue that Twinkies are more American then yogurt is French.
Classic Monopoly / Monopsony situation. When there is only 1 buyer (of labor) and only 1 seller (of labor), and negotiations break down, there are not a lot of options left on the table.
The company has only a single ace – declare bankruptcy. This will void all of the contracts and the bankruptcy judge can sort things out. The union has only a single ace card – call the company’s bluff.
It is like a giant game of chicken. Compare this to Somalia Pirates or your favorite sports franchise. Where is the hockey season this year? These deals are hard to do.
It is a conspiracy. This is, obviously, the first step in zombie world domination.
That is true – but there is still room for improvement. Under the current system with high costs and large variable awards you get Lawsuit Lotto - file frivolous lawsuits until you lucky number arrives. On the other hand, legitimate suits with low payouts are ignored.
What you want the system to do is to quickly and consistently decided lawsuits – with damages high enough to compensate the victims, be a deterrent to future mischief – but not so high as to deter innovation.
Yes – they will check. My wife signed us up for a month of the wine club once – both of us work at locations that did not accept deliveries – so we had to trek out to the warehouse to pick up the wine. We did not sign up again.
Minnesota allows you to do this. And we have winter and wolves. What could be more fun than wolf hunting in the snow?
Try here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)
or here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise):
Well, maybe. Think about the following scenario. Let us say you are a chip design firm that wants to get into server chips – we will call it ARM. You have 2 choices.
The first is to build your team up from scratch. Search the world over, recruit the engineers, move them to your headquarters (or wherever.). Hopefully you get the right mixture of people.
Or you could buy AMD. They already have design teams set up. Sure, you may lose 10% in a well-executed buy out – but that will leave enough core people to continue on.
You could substitute Samsung and graphic chips.
This, of course, makes huge assumptions about building a team from scratch vs. AMD team – but I think it is where you want to start.
You’re making the assumption that anaclitic ability is the primary determinate of matting success in humans. Normally, it’s not. You can find a few rare cases where it is – and the progeny of those cases tend to have higher rates of autism and aspeger – suggesting that there are tradeoffs.
Normally, a broader range of attributes are used to determine mating potential. The ability to dance is a much better determinate. The ability to process music (mental) in a coordinated fashion (mental / physical) over a long period of time (physical) demonstrates genetic fitness that is hard to fake.
Sigh – and I have 2 left feet.
No, it has been going up.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/26/1245231/are-we-getting-smarter-rising-iq-scores-in-the-twenty-first-century
The Force for IV-VI was a mystical force, having quasi Zen Buddhist elements. Now, that it has been explained (badly, IMHO) it is something less – pseudo-science at best. And now that we can put force abilities on a rational, objective standing – what does that add to the story? I have seen stories where the Jedi needs a boost to their power so they inject themselves with an extra shot of Midi-chlorians.
A parallel was ST:TNG particle of the week. First we need a particle to kick off the plot, then we need a pseudo-scientific explanation to get us out. I liked the fact that in Babylon 5 the Star Furies moved at the speed of plot.
Partly this is a revolt – I grew up with a lot of hard science fiction. If you want to push fake science to explore the human condition – great! I love those stories. But fake science for fake science – sigh. Kind of reminds me of Larry Niven’s “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” – you don’t want to look at your fake science too hard.
Personally, I would substituted
“Star Wars fanatics” for “Star Wars Fan” and
“Average Star Wars Fan” for “Studios”.
I consider myself an average fan. I have seen the films, read some of the comics books, played one of the games. I know enough to know that there is a vast pool of extended universe stuff, but I don’t have the time or energy to figure out the chaff from the quality.
The prior extended universe should not constrain or limit the writer from writing a good story. Respectful yes – but not bound to it. The expectation would be the midi-chlorians. That is an idea that should die.
Vulture capitalism is a subtype of private equity.
Private equity(PE) tend to be limited partnerships with a fixed horizon of 10 to 20 years. They tend to specialize.
Venture Capital are PEs that specialize in funding firms that are in start up mode. i.e., are young and not profitable. The idea is provided money and management experience and hit a home run.
Then there are the “distressed” and/or “turn-around” PEs. They will either 1. Come in and turn around the firm or 2. Dismantle the firm and sell it off for parts.
Bain Capital runs both types of funds. Warren Buffett does too. When he invested in Berkshire Hathaway is was in the declining cloth industry. For the next 50 years – well.
and Cuba
Well, it depends on who you read.
Obama got 50%, Rommey got 48%. I call that pretty darn close.
On the other hand, if we are talking about the electoral college – that something else. Everybody knew where CA, NY, TX, etc. where going to go. They left just a few swing states, OH, FL, etc. In these swing states Obama had a narrow lead – but he only had to win a few to win. If the swing states were fair coins (50/20) Obama would probably win – which is my Silver (who used polls instead of fair coins) - gave Obama over a 80% chance to win.
Which makes Silver’s so good. Eisenhower won by a far large percentage – both with the popular vote and the electoral vote. Simpler computer and maths but a simpler problem as well.
But this is almost the way it has to be done when you have a large population with many secular events – that is when the facts on the ground change.
You have a host of polls. Some have more rigor than others. Some are rolling (ask the same person 2 weeks apart.) Some have demographic data. Some are instant, some take a week to gather the data.
And during that time you have real events happening which is changing the game. Take the 1st debate where Rommey beat Obama. How much weight do you give to poll which spans the first debate, but is big and rigorous against a smaller, sloppier instant poll?
One has to make a subjective judgment based on knowledge of math, the strength and weakness of the various polls, experience, and wisdom.
This is an issue for all social scientist who use statistics. It’s better than you intuition but there are limits.
Jor-El, as a brilliant scientist, knew that the yellow sun would give his child super powers.
Look, Superman been around for almost 75 years. During that time a lot of above average people have had these types of questions and the writers have answered them. Sometimes with poor science, sometimes they contradict themselves.
On the flip side, there is some good stuff out there.
James Kakalios is my favorite example. Physicist (PhD., Professor.) and lover of comic books. He has done some cool stuff.
http://www.physicsofsuperheroes.com/intro-physics-book.php
http://www.physicsofsuperheroes.com/videos.php
Superman’s ship traveled faster than light to get to Earth.
The explanation of all the kryptonite getting to Earth was that the ship created a wormhole to get from Krtyton to Earth and a fair amount of debris got sucked in and followed. Now, mind you, this was 90s comic books science. I don’t know what the start of the art is today.
To you and / or Europe, maybe he is not that extreme.
To America? Yes, he is. America’s center is further to the right, so even our centrist lefts seem right to them.
Or, better, yet, of the Democratic candidates who ran for President in 2004, name one that was more to the left? None. So, from a relative view point, he was the most extreme left candidate.
Absolute would be a different question – but would not be helpful on figuring out why our FPP voting method is delivering more extreme candidates.
Let me try to modify your position a little bit. First Past the Post should create what you are looking for – 2 centralist candidates – and in the US has mostly done so – until recently.
Which is where I come back to agree with you. Big money from narrow interest groups are pouring into the primaries. Thus hard left/right are dominating in recent cycles, causing more extreme candidates to win. Then, build on the fact that it is easier and safer to energize one’s core base then try to persuade the center.
It’s not volume – it is overcapacity. LCD manufacturing has high fixed costs – that is it is a capital intensive business.
A few years ago everybody built fab plants – and then the economy turned south so people stopped buying large screen TVs. (oversimplied, but.)
So, when there is overproduction one has 2 choices – mothball the entire plant (complete loss) or engage in a brutal wall of price cuts and attrition. The logical choice is price cuts and attrition (well, the logical choice would be to go back in time and not build the plant in the first place, but.)
In my county there are about 60 different voting districts that can occur due to various combinations at the Federal, County, and city level. And it is not always “pick 1 candidate”.
To break it down,
State wide we have Federal & State there are multiple first past the post elections. (FPP)
There are my Congressional district, State Senate, State repr, and county board. None of these districts are the same size. So that is 4.
I have a school board member for my ward and one that is voted at large, so 2 more.
I get to vote for 3 judges – unranked from a pool.
Nothing is happening this year at the city level, but when it does I need to vote for the mayor and city councilor (which is, once again, a non-overlapping district) using the instant vote runoff.
Regression testing is hard, expensive, and long in this type of situation. So yeah, ATMs have it easier and sometimes paper and pencil works.