Hitler used the same line of thinking you just regurgitated.
He branded a group of people as denying German humanity (evil usupers looking to cause harm from within) and used that as justification for the Holocaust.
I actually think about this paradox relative to the uptick in crime in major cities.
Take SF for example where crime has seemingly spiked and there's no willingness to enforce the law /prosecute offenders.
On one hand, a version of Hammurabi's Code (to cut off the hand of thieves) is probably inappropriate. On the other, we've created an environment where there's no repercussion for breaking the law.
Personally, I find myself favoring Hammurabi's approach.
I don't believe his code specifically addressed petty theft; allow me to paint with broad strokes.
> You do not extend tolerance to those who would deny your humanity.
Probably a bad ethos to harbour, one that I imagine quickly rationalizes violent behavior.
And I think we're all fortunate that in the US there is no prevailing force denying any specific race of their humanity. Is there scar tissue from the past? Certainly.
As Snowden states "freedom is a direction" and we've certainly moved in the right direction over the past 30 years.
> Racism in the US is just fascism that hasn't hit white people yet.
Odd foreshadowing, but let's hope that true fascism never metastasizes in the US.
I am curious as to who you believe is currently denying your /others humanity in the US?
Sure, there's lots of people on the far right saying things like "Muslims are terrorists who are trying to invade us" or "globalism is a plot by the international jewry to do so-and-so".
Imagine you were a Black woman born in late 1865. You were among the first never to have known slavery. You witnessed the first Black folks elected to Congress and even considered it normal.
Then Reconstruction ends with a whimper. Burning crosses are showing up everywhere. Thousands flee north as a reign of terror grows. Your voting rights are curtailed then eliminated. When Black folks are elected, they are driven out of office by gunfire, and the federal government does nothing. You were never eligible for the same jobs as white folks, but now you can't even drink from the same fountains.
Would you say that woman lives in a democracy/democratic republic or a fascist hellscape?
Then some legislation is passed. The folks wrongly accused remain in jail, the dead remain dead, and the ones who killed them are never brought to justice. The change is considered an injustice by many, who leave their political party in droves and welcomed by the other party in a "Southern Strategy."
Things seems to quiet down a little though representation in media either wholely excludes her descendants or disproportionately shows them on shows like "Cops". The history of that legislation is watered down and most of the details of what happened before are not taught in schools. Some public schools even have teachers arguing the authoritarianism was justifiable. See: Lost Cause.
Then a man with her skin color is elected president. Those same people who claimed that the presidency must hold certain moral and capability requirements are confronted with a man with all required qualifications and then some.
After his largely scandal-free tenure, those same folks, many of whom were alive and among those forced by the National Guard to treat people with his skin color as a human being, gave up all pretense to morality and competence in the presidency to elect a man who had neither.
And then we he lost re-election, they attempted to storm the Capital and kill those that would replace him. This was not quiet either. Folks brought lumber and BUILT a gallows where they chanted for the Vice President to be hung for his lack of loyalty to the outgoing president.
Did I mention the man with a knee on his neck for the better part of ten minutes, whose murderers would have gotten away with it had it not been for uncut civilian video footage of the event from multiple angles?
Or the woman shot in her bed with no one held to account for her death?
Or the literally dozens of instances off the top of my head where a police officer kills or maims someone ON VIDEO with only a slap on the wrist if that?
How about elected officials publicly stating that homosexuality or being trans should be a capital crime?
Or legislation popping up around the country that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right in law unless you are female between approximately the ages of 12 and 50.
I'll restate: racism and sexism and homophobia are all examples of fascism that haven't hit wealthy white men yet.
And unfortunately poor white men and white women in general have failed to recognize the difference between power and proximity to power. To everyone's detriment.
That's a lot of text, but I fail to see your point. Is there one?
In keeping with the spirit of the author; freedom is not a goal, but a direction. And broadly speaking, we're moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately, you sound like you've become somewhat of a zealot. A byproduct of being spoon fed rage via the nightly media /twitter cycle.
Statistically there's one specific group of peoples that drive a disproportionate amount of violent crime. Specifically murder, rape, robbery, and assault.
I think stepping back and realizing how far we've come, not only as a country but also globally is worth recognizing. Harboring venom from past wrongs won't do you any good; if anything it appears to be obfuscating the present.
We literally have folks in office that called a violent insurrection during a peaceful transition of power following a democratic election "just tourists".
And that's not counting the elected officials who actively abetted the insurrection.
And most members of their party are pissed at the few who are willing to call it what it was: a violent insurrection attempting to overthrow the democratically-elected government.
For reference, I was born less than ten years after my parents' marriage was made legal across the US.
I am not yet 50 years old.
Ruby Bridges only recently became eligible for Social Security. Many of the people who fought to keep her out of the classroom are still alive today. They are elected officials. They taught in the schools. They raised their kids.
Now ask yourself if a law passed today would change your mind on an issue that's important to you.
> I'll restate: racism and sexism and homophobia are all examples of fascism that haven't hit wealthy white men yet.
lolwut
You can't call something you think is bad, and just make the conclusion its the same thing as something else you think is bad. And just make it self evident.
I guess we've found the person who considers it debatable whether people of color or homosexuals should be treated as human beings.
Please note I never said that wealthy white men should be considered lesser. Simply that policies put in place by wealthy white men have clearly caused harm throughout US history.
People of color never signed off on redlining.
There has not been legislation giving non-white male folks more rights than anyone else, but there have been many many laws seeking to limit their rights relative to others.
Loss of privileges other do not have is not the same as oppression. (Though it often feels that way to the privileged.)
> The fact that hedge fund managers live from the fees tells what they really think about their skills. Never gamble using your own money.
Most hedge funds don't gamble, but some do have poor risk management (e.g. Melvin Capital).
The proposition of a hedge fund is actually very compelling to institutional money: range-bound returns in any type of market environment. This proposition bodes very well for say major pension funds that want to avoid market risk while also modeling out return + pension liabilities at an assumed rate of return.
Take some risk profile and then bet that low cost automatically balancing stock/bond Vanguard fund beats 90% of hedge funds over 10 years based on risk adjusted return.
> Take some risk profile and then bet that low cost automatically balancing stock/bond Vanguard fund beats 90% of hedge funds over 10 years based on risk adjusted return.
That would be a closer "apples to apples" comparison vs. Buffett's bet.
Do you believe the following investments are equally attractive?
1. You invest $100,000 into a fund which has a 1% chance of returning 100% and 99% chance of returning -100% each year.
2. You invest $100,000 into a fund which has a 20% chance of returning 100% and a 80% chance of returning -100% each year.
The possible payouts are the same. The expected values are not. Given the opportunity to invest in both with no difference in fees or other structure, would you leave your decision up to a coin flip?
This bet is disengeneous as *most hedge funds operate under risk neutral long /short strategies that seek to generate returns irrespective of market conditions.
Want to know what a good year for a PM at a major platform hedge fund (P72, BAM, Millenium, etc... ) looks like? Probably in the range of 8 -12% returns, which translates to 7-figure pay days.
A more in depth explanation below from the article is linked below.
> Having the flexibility to invest both long and short, hedge funds do not set out to beat the market. Rather, they seek to generate positive returns over time regardless of the market environment. They think very differently than do traditional “relative-return” investors, whose primary goal is to beat the market, even when that only means losing less than the market when it falls. For hedge funds, success can mean outperforming the market in lean times, while underperforming in the best of times. Through a cycle, nevertheless, top hedge fund managers have surpassed market returns net of all fees, while assuming less risk as well. We believe such results will continue.
Every year there are hedge fund managers that outperform the market. The trick is knowing at the beginning of the year which manager that’s going to be.
Absent that crystal ball, a portfolio of hedge funds is a strictly more expensive way of investing than an index fund.
And, as I understand from Bogle's (admittedly dated) book, when that happens everyone rushes into the fund and it begins to underperform due to its increased weight/influence (see Peter Lynch's Magellan Fund).
So is your argument that we just haven’t been through a cycle or else the hedge funds would have come out ahead? If they didn’t come out ahead after all of the turmoil, they are (on average) worse than an index fund.
> So is your argument that we just haven’t been through a cycle or else the hedge funds would have come out ahead? If they didn’t come out ahead after all of the turmoil, they are (on average) worse than an index fund.
No. The proposition of most platform hedge funds is not to beat the market. It's to generate returns in any type of environment on a risk neutral basis.
So if you invest in a hedge fund, do not expect market returns. Expect range-bound returns in any type of market environment.
Hedge funds are risk management vehicles for institutional money.
Please read the article. It's explained clearly under Protege Partners, LLC's Argument.
> Mr. Buffett is correct in his assertion that, on average, active management in a narrowly defined universe like the S&P; 500 is destined to underperform market indexes. That is a well-established fact in the context of traditional long-only investment management. But applying the same argument to hedge funds is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison.
> Having the flexibility to invest both long and short, hedge funds do not set out to beat the market. Rather, they seek to generate positive returns over time regardless of the market environment. They think very differently than do traditional “relative-return” investors, whose primary goal is to beat the market, even when that only means losing less than the market when it falls. For hedge funds, success can mean outperforming the market in lean times, while underperforming in the best of times. Through a cycle, nevertheless, top hedge fund managers have surpassed market returns net of all fees, while assuming less risk as well. We believe such results will continue.
I don't have an opinion on how useful McKinsey is, but I'll note that no one is pointing out that they also did a lot of work for Microsoft before their big turnaround.
Enron and Valeant are two of the most significant examples of corporate malfeasance over the past 20 years; McKinsey or its partners were directly involved in both.
The most concerning part about this is the following excerpt which highlights how Twitter is working at behest of the government in India:
> Earlier, government sources said the IT Ministry had asked Twitter to suspend these and several other accounts. Sources said the request came from the Home Ministry and law enforcement agencies, and was made to prevent "escalation of law and order (situation) in view of the ongoing farmer agitation".
TD Canada has prevented some forms of orders (e.g. market buy), but not limit buy - I think this isn't so bad as their clients might expect the quoted price and get screwed at open because of volatility
tastyworks went to close-only @ 11:39AM per an email, and opened it back up at 3:12PM today. They blamed Apex clearing, which is the custodian for tastyworks accounts.
Give the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan a listen. The French revolution was not what it seems... it was elites vs. elites, not peasants vs. monarchy.
Yeah, what a weird take. As if La Bastille was attacked by French aristocracy. This argument only holds if you hold 2 very loose claims. 1) To confuse the leaders with the whole movement. 2) To compare the rag-tag group of young lawyers, acerbic journalists, disgruntled politicians with the whole ancien regime.
Mike Duncan is an entertainer, not a professional historian.
Luddites is also a good example. Oh, you are poor and starving and protesting on the streets? They start destroying machines? Time to arrest everyone, even those who did nothing.
> This is sad because most of what you've said can be applied to lotteries as well, which historically has been criticized as being a "tax" on the poor. The end result is the same: people putting themselves in a worse place financially (on average), just so they can cope with their bleak existence.
Damn. I've never considered the psychological effects of the lottery system, but in a way I think you hit the nail on the head.
Anyways, in the GME scenario it appears that most retail investors are actually in a better place financially because of it.
Hitler used the same line of thinking you just regurgitated.
He branded a group of people as denying German humanity (evil usupers looking to cause harm from within) and used that as justification for the Holocaust.
I think you need a time out.