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It's been a long journey.....
Fallacies And Biases Influencing Trading Or Investing Decisions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
"plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose"
I've read Tocqueville's epic Democracy In America, and I recommend others do the same, for a fuller understanding of our nation and its evolving political appetites. Another excellent read is Frederick Brown's Letters From America, an exciting account of Tocqueville's 1831-1832 visit as conveyed in his letters; it's a real page-turner that brings history to life. This is a worthwhile supplement to Democracy In America.
I suspected that, eventually, a sense of shame might play a persuasive role. Or embarrassment. Or guilt. Or garden variety fear. Or some sort of an emotional potpourri of all of these things, if indeed the inscrutable Mr. T is even capable of such.
https://www.choosingtherapy.com/shame/
He had to have finally seen the writing on the wall....as well as angry phone calls and emails from worried constituents, some of whom no doubt understood more than the Coach does that in the Senate, you sometimes have to go along to get along in order to effectively address the needs and concerns of the folks back in the state. Tubby must have finally realized that he wasn't in the House; he was in the Big Kids' Sandbox, and he'd better start acting like it.
Never been in the military, never been pregnant - and most importantly, never been pregnant while serving in the military.....Mr. Clueless Tuberville here has a lot of nerve to plant his flag in the ground of this particular issue. When he finally leaves the Senate, I hope it's while crawling on his belly.
So, let me get this straight: Tuberville claims the White House is injecting politics into the military.....but Tuberville ain't doin' the same thing?!
I'm on the edge of my seat....
That would certainly make for an interesting video clip.
Surely there must be a village for him somewhere.....
"...or eat the wrong kinds of food."
Always reason #1, in my opinion.
Umm, something in the Alabama water?
It may be that the side effects are there to temper expectations and keep everybody honest....
The weight-loss drug gold rush is getting larger
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/weight-loss-drugs-develop-roche
So they tried to capitalize off of the mythical sugar high....that's a bit over the top....even for Madison Avenue.
https://www.goodrx.com/well-being/diet-nutrition/are-sugar-high-sugar-crash-real
$4.3 Billion? The fine is fine.....https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/binance-and-ceo-plead-guilty-federal-charges-4b-resolution
...and one of the largest ever levied against a corporation.
Reminder: Don't forget to turn your bathroom scales back 15 pounds Wednesday night at 1 AM for Thanksgiving.
Blatant: conducting exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency services without regulatory permission; commingling funds; and running a business like the poorly disciplined predatory sleazeballs the accused principals appear to be. And every new securities broker trainee knows you don't mess with the Exchange Act of 1934; it might be dated, but it remains powerful, and relevant. The complaint seems like a slam-dunk for the SEC.
Finally!!!
Yes, some of them can be a little.....lively:
You are absolutely right. As a former foodservice executive (fine dining) I've taken advantage of restaurant supply stores for as long as I can remember, even after leaving the industry and downsizing my creative food efforts to the confines of my personal kitchen. The phrase "kid in a candy store" always came to mind when wandering the aisles of these vendors; I once labeled these stores "Disneyland for chefs." There are always neat new surprises revealed in each new visit. In addition, the Sysco catalog was a little like the Sears catalog in its appeal, and the Sysco food & equipment reps. always visited with news of something newly valuable to chefs and hospitality managers.
Other thrilling adventures were the regularly scheduled restaurant trade shows that continue to appear around the country; these are truly "Disneyland for restaurant professionals," what with new tools, new front of the house/back of the house equipment and supplies, and, best of all, booth after booth of new foods and samples. I urge all home cooks to visit restaurant supply stores for that "unexpected find," and to visit restaurant trade shows for the emotional rush that accompanies dazzling new discoveries in the world of professional foodservice, even if they have no plans to prepare and serve food and beverage to the public as a business. The average home cook is bound to find a restaurant-level piece of equipment of some kind that he or she will eventually come to regard as indispensable in their own home kitchen.
So who needs Williams Sonoma?!
Recipe: Jailhouse sous-vide pasta and toilet broccoli
https://thecellblock.net/the-fine-art-of-cooking-in-prison/
The $1.8 billion verdict that could lower home prices
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/02/realtors-liable-commissions-home-prices
Crypto horrors: Tales of lost Bitcoin wallets
https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-horrors-tales-of-lost-bitcoin-wallets
Jury Finds Realtors Conspired to Keep Commissions High, Awards Nearly $1.8 Billion in Damages
The verdict, which hands loss to brokerages and industry trade association, could upend the home-sale industry
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—A federal jury on Tuesday found the National Association of Realtors and large residential brokerages liable for about $1.8 billion in damages after determining they conspired to keep commissions for home sales artificially high.
The verdict could lead to industrywide upheaval by changing decades-old rules that have helped lock in commission rates even as home prices have skyrocketed—which has allowed real-estate agents to collect ever-larger sums. It comes in the first of two antitrust lawsuits arguing that unlawful industry practices have left consumers unable to lower their costs even though internet-era innovations have allowed many buyers to find homes themselves online.
Announced in a packed Kansas City, Mo., courtroom, the verdict came after just a few hours of jury deliberations. The case was brought by home sellers in several Midwestern states. Their lawyers hugged and shook hands as the verdict was announced.
Under antitrust rules, the presiding judge could triple the damages verdict, which would total more than $5 billion. The plaintiffs also have asked the judge to order changes to how the industry operates.
For several years NAR has been fending off accusations by U.S. antitrust officials and private litigants that it has conspired to keep home-sale costs high in the face of major technological upheavals. This verdict is by far the group’s biggest setback yet.
An NAR spokesman said, “This matter is not close to being final as we will appeal the jury’s verdict.”
Two brokerages, HomeServices of America and Keller Williams Realty, were also defendants in the case. Two others, Anywhere Real Estate
and Re/Max Holdings, settled before trial and agreed to pay almost $140 million combined.
Brokerage share prices dropped after the ruling.
HomeServices of America, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, said it intends to appeal. “Today’s decision means that buyers will face even more obstacles in an already challenging real estate market and sellers will have a harder time realizing the value of their homes,” a company spokeswoman said. Keller Williams said it is considering an appeal.
Under the current system, sellers pay their own agent a commission—typically 5% to 6% of a home’s selling price—which is in turn shared with the buyer’s agent. Over the course of the trial, plaintiffs’ attorneys argued this model has suppressed competition by making it difficult for buyers and sellers to negotiate for lower rates.
“NAR and corporate real-estate companies have had a stranglehold on real-estate commissions for too long,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael Ketchmark said outside of the courtroom.
-- WSJ
Bitcoin Is 15 Years Old. The Return is 3.4 Billion Percent.
Today is Bitcoin’s 15th birthday. Some lucky people have reason to celebrate. Since it first started trading on an exchange, the token is up 3,449,989,839%.
Few people, of course, would have guessed that Bitcoin would go on to become the beating heart of a $1.3 trillion crypto industry. Today, Bitcoin is worth more than $670 billion, and it remains the most popular and widely traded crypto—among a field teeming with rivals from Ethereum to alt-coins like Solana.
But don’t beat yourself up if you missed it—the odds of picking Bitcoin as such a big winner 15 years ago were probably on par with winning the lottery. And returns of that magnitude are largely illusory, though a few early adopters are sitting on massive gains.
The token got its start in a white paper published by a pseudonymous developer, “Satoshi Nakamoto,” on Oct. 31, 2008.
The vision was for a “peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” that would allow for payments without going through a bank or other financial institution. The network running the system would be dispersed among independent computer operators who would collectively verify and record transactions in blocks (hence the idea of a “blockchain.”). In return for their work, called “mining,” the miners would receive Bitcoin doled out at a pre-set rate.
Developers launched the Bitcoin network in January 2009. The first recorded transaction on an exchange came in October 2009, when someone sent 5,050 Bitcoins to a new site called New Liberty Standard, receiving $5.02 in return.
Its rise since then has been staggering. Using that starting price of about a tenth of a cent, the crypto has returned more than 3.4 billion percent. That’s compares to a roughly 300% increase for the S&P 500 since October 2009, before dividends. At Bitcoin’s recent price of $34,290, that initial $5 investment would be worth just over $173 million.
Even if you’d started trading a few years after its launch, it has hardly been a smooth ride. The most rapid price increase occurred in its first few years of existence, when it was barely known and rarely traded. Over the course of its existence, investors have had to stomach gut-wrenching declines, including drawdowns of 77% in 2014, 72% in 2018, and 65% last year.
Bitcoin owners have also had to survive countless thefts and frauds to hold onto their tokens. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox was the first major Bitcoin exchange, handling nearly three-quarters of trades. It shuttered abruptly in 2014 after disclosing it had lost Bitcoins worth around $500 million. Its former customers are still fighting to get some of their funds back in bankruptcy court.
Most recently, customers of FTX.com lost billions of dollars in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in an alleged fraud perpetrated by founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is fighting the charges in court.
Bitcoin remains well below its 2021 high of more than $60,000.
Crypto investors have lately argued that the likely launch of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund will bring in billions of dollars in assets to the market. Others think the next “halving event,” in 2024, will provide another lift. That’s when the Bitcoin blockchain network is scheduled to cut the number of new Bitcoins awarded for validating each block in half, from 6.25 to 3.125.
As enthusiasts see it, the token will keep rising, eventually becoming a store of value impregnable to the forces of inflation, geopolitical shocks, and global currency collapses. Of course, things could go the other way as other cryptos gain traction or some governments try to stamp it out.
Either way, the days of 3.4 billion percentage gains seem gone for good.
Write to Joe Light at joe.light@barrons.com
"A Bit of Butter is Better with Batter"
Try saying that ten times quickly.....
https://iambaker.net/butter-swim-biscuits/
(The Washington Post's version is identical, except for calling for 2 3/4 cup of flour)
What’s The Difference Between Stock and Broth?
https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/stock-vs-broth
Holy Ayn Rand, Batman!
Seriously, I'm guessing that (as a lad in my teens) my sole conversation in Santa Barbara back in the 70s with one of the founders of Reason magazine (over the kitchen table no less, where the genesis of at least a few early issues must have taken place) probably touched to a significant degree on the topic of altruism (and for awhile the rag carried a comic strip titled The Masked Altruist, if memory serves; I no longer follow the publication), and where exactly Rand's objectivism might have fit in. No doubt the atmosphere in the kitchen that day trended toward the John Galtian (I don't remember many of the conversational details). Anyway, what you post here is all good science; a lengthy response would be beyond the scope of this board. Suffice it to say that we are all just marionettes, and The Selfish Gene is the puppeteer (a stance with which you seem to implicitly agree, e.g. reproduction), for better or for worse. Precisely where altruism figures into our collective and individual lives is well within our capacity to determine and direct, as a species and as individuals.
I recommend Dawkins's book (coincidentally, I developed a parallel selfish gene theory a few years before it was published in 1976, a worldview providing unwavering personal comfort and clarity ever since). Though my own intellectual foundation owes a more vigorous nod to sociobiology in general.
The Selfish Gene knows all.....
The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3 billion
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/17/crypto911.html