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That is like when the options trader phones as the BSE was first
anounced and me going out<br>
and putting 100,000 into options on the down side of beef so I could be
400,000 richer in a week,<br>
Ethically I know that the market will be drained of liquidity for the
producer and that the consumer<br>
will probably never benefit from the beef market crash and I will know
that in some small <br>
way I have contributed to both these things by taking a quick rake from
someone else's disaster.<br>
<br>
Ditto with options trading on heating oil futures, natural gas futures
, unleaded gasoline futures the day of the hurricane.<br>
<br>
Frankly the ethical thing for Bush would have been to freeze the
options markets on those commodities and<br>
put a 1/2 to 1 cent ceiling on moves for the month afterward. Not the
free market thing to do but the ethical thing to do.<br>
<br>
The farming subsidy game is just that a game. Farm subsidies are more
like farm welfare. <br>
USA farmers make as much by farming the program in net terms as farming
the farm some years, for some crops.<br>
<br>
Where ethics comes in is if a large group of farmers secretly conspire
to raise or not raise a particular crop<br>
and deliberately bid the opposite side of the market with a bait and
switch approach leaving non-farming<br>
speculators holding the bag. Of course , one of the merits of the farm
programs is that they prevent<br>
that very thing from happening by making farmers more predictable. <br>
<br>
I still see options and derivatives markets as more parasitic (in their
everyday use) than enhancing the true market valuation of goods(as is
the commonly purported purpose for their existance).<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
spike wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid200509050156.j851uVw19667@tick.javien.com"
type="cite">
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<pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bounces@lists.extropy.org">bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>] On Behalf Of Technotranscendence
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<pre wrap=""><!---->...
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">In this case, too, by "selling" the view, might not Spike be bringing a
lot of bad consequences on himself? After all, if he reinforces wrong
views and then these same people, e.g., support bad policies doesn't
that, ultimately, hurt him? Yes, he might make a quick buck now, but
what about the wider implications. The world has enough foolish ideas
in it already, why add to the mess?:)
Regards,
Dan
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
Hmmm, this seems a little extreme. What I had in mind
is to put some farm land to work producing fuel crops,
stuff that can be converted to ethanol or biodiesel. To
make it pay, I would need to collect subsidies on it, or
at least take full advantage of the tax breaks that may
be available.
I don't feel that subsidizing that kind of stuff is a
good idea, but hey, I could be wrong. I might have been
wrong about freon: they tell me the ozone hole is
decreasing. I never did see how human use of freon
could have that much impact, but perhaps it did. I
had a job in the early 90s phasing out freon in
aerospace manufacturing processes, so in that sense
I was cashing in on something I thought was bogus. But
perhaps it wasn't so I suppose farming fuel crops today
is analogous.
spike
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