Corpania Ideas

CAVEAT! I'm an amateur philosopher and idea-generator. I am NOT an investment professional. Don't take any of my advice before consulting with an attorney and also a duly licensed authority on finance. Seriously, this my personal blog of random ideas only for entertainment purposes. Don't be an idiot.

Saturday, March 21, 2020

MORE ENTERTAINING THOUGHTS & PREDICTIONS ABOUT COVID19 (FWTW):

MORE ENTERTAINING THOUGHTS & PREDICTIONS ABOUT COVID19 (FWTW):

Ok, so I kinda look like a prescient genius (at least temporarily) for emailing a bunch of friends a week ago with my repeated prediction that the market was going to drop even further (from S&P index ~2700 on Sunday night 03/15/20, down to ~2300 on 03/20/20), which is a delta of ~15% collapsing in 1 week (the worst week in over a decade).

I asked what would happen if "a GOP Senator or Trump family member or Hannity/Rush (got) seriously sick from (Covid19)"? 
And now LOU DOBBS is self-quarantining (sufficiently close as a test case for my hypothesis).
So this will be a natural experiment to see if my prediction further holds true. I maintain that some sort of bipartisan consensus on COVID19's eventual effects must exist as a prerequisite for a lasting market rebound with reduced volatility (stipulating that I'm a financial amateur).

Now, to fairly calibrate and quite fortunately, it seems partisan opinions of the dangers of COVID19 have begun to get into better alignment.

Purely coincidentally, right after my email because there's virtually no way they listen to me...
Perhaps, the better bipartisan alignment happened because FoxNews has auspiciously, conspicuously re-oriented to be much less dismissive of COVID19's harms and it has become more realistically cautionary.

To be fair, it's conceivable many short sellers will want to do profit-taking and the supposedly big money on the sidelines could want to "buy the dip" (as per Larry Kudlow's and Trump administration's recommendations), which would indicate upward pressure.
That's not my view, considering all of the factors in play. But I could easily be wrong.

The big picture questions that are currently most interesting to me are: 

• How much more panic and fear will we have to endure? 

• When will we see (and believe) that there's light at the end of the tunnel?

• Ron Paul's recent op-ed is like a gamer who'd prefer to lose actual friends IRL in order to win more points. So, given that perspective, how likely is our government to make an unconscionably cold calculus that saving 100k to 2MM+ American lives is not worth the economic catastrophe caused by such mandated "social distancing" and similar actions, for extended periods of time?

• What's the likelihood we never rebound to normalcy (as we knew it in 2019)? How many restaurants, bars, clubs, movie theaters, amusement parks, concert venues, gyms, hotels, etc. will close forever and which chains will subsequently strive to take their place (assuming society's behavior resumes with people going out the way we did in the "before times")?

• Given our massive increase in military interventions and spending after 9/11, and how it's likely that COVID19 will kill exponentially more Americans, what is the likelihood that that disproportionate response effects a massive re-prioritization of resources (devastating the MIC/arms manufacturers) and diverting greater resources into pandemic-related and health industries? 
>>> Seems like any company that can install "automatic doors" should skyrocket. Emoji

IMHO, the key factors in changing the equation are:

• When will there be a sufficiently *verified* cure/treatment and vaccine? As soon as we "know" it's coming, optimism and bullish investment seem likely to happen, in my amateur opinion, and well before the cure's and vaccine's rollouts (let alone before their positive effects take hold).

• When will we know how likely "herd immunity" is to result from those who recover plus those ultimately vaccinated? Is reinfection a serious concern? What's the likelihood of mutation (will there be a yearly Covid20/21/22 etc.) and comparable calamities?

• What will happen in the next couple of months or so when large numbers of functionally laid-off people (2% to 10%+ which is millions in the US) can't pay their bills? If the government doesn't find a way to give citizens direct payments & bill/rent/debt waivers (socialism!?!) and/or other sufficient social programs & relief in time, will there be rampant criminality? And if so, will there be an authoritarian government crackdown?

REMINDER: I'm just giving you my amateur opinions for entertainment purposes. I'm not a financial professional. #TWYFA - Talk with your financial advisor.

BTW - I love the podcast "THE YOUNG TURKS"! 
They're informative and fun to listen to, so please sign-up for membership and use my link: https://tap.tyt.com/corpania


Thanks and good karma to you!

____________________________________________________

LINKS...


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Wednesday, February 05, 2020

How are you going to win in a democratic republic?

How are you going to win in a democratic republic?


You either fundamentally believe in maintaining a democratic republic, or you don't. 


We might intuitively appreciate the theory that "politicians' campaigns, held accountable by a free press, will honorably inform and reasonably persuade the majority of voters based on verifiable facts." But most would agree that it has not worked perfectly well in practice. There may exist an inform-able and reasonably persuadable portion of the population, but at least in the USA in February 2020, that portion has, to date, been vastly outnumbered by apathetic non-voters, as well as those in each respective, die-hard ideological base.


If you do believe in maintaining a democratic republic, then you should need a majority of support to accomplish anything (if your country's laws require a supermajority, then the following argument is even more salient). So how do you get a majority? Sociopaths can try to employ fascism and genocide to exterminate opposition – this essay isn't for them. 


Normally, there's a wide variety of opinions, and the people that hold them have their own gradations and priorities. For an example of views on the right, a given person might be generally pro-life, but she might think that a rape victim shouldn't be compelled by the state to have the rapist's baby. Consequently, she'll vote for the pro-life candidate unless he crosses that line.


Similarly, on the left, someone might be for the humane treatment of immigrants who enter illegally, but that person could also be against completely open borders that have no restrictions whatsoever. 


Then there's the fact that everyone's priorities make politics even more complicated. Someone might have just three issues that are equally crucial in a voting decision and only another dozen issues that are worth some degree of care (simply ignoring every other policy matter).

• What happens when a politician barely agrees with two of the three crucial issues but is in total opposition to all of the dozen? 

• What happens when the politician strongly agrees with one and barely disagrees on two of the three crucial issues and is confusingly split on the dozen? 

One could develop an algorithm for methodically weighting the issues regarding one's vote (see AJU's 2012 TEDx Talk "Sports Can Save Politics" and any number of websites to "find your candidate"). But that could seem too formulaic, and consequently, one's vote is likely to end up being a gut decision. 


Given a society's regular difference of beliefs with an exponentially more complicated hierarchy of priorities, you probably need some version of a voter coalition to create your preferred majority. 


Of course, you can have dealbreaker "purity tests" on however many issues you like. A leftist could start out his dealbreaker list moderately and then increasingly, unreasonably keep adding to it until he guarantees himself a loss in elections. 

• So where should he draw the line on this list: completely dismiss anyone for being pro-slavery, pro-holocaust, pro-nuking of enemy countries, pro-fossil fuels, pro-private vehicles, pro-carnivore, pro-commerce of any kind, pro-having animals as pets, pro-religion, pro-having children?

Which of those definitively alienates the majority? The progressive voter doesn't have to be best friends with the people who drive their own cars or eat animal products, but he probably should try to get their vote. If not, he's going to need an overwhelming coalition of people who agree with him on most everything else. To reject this reality is to facilitate the right-wing strategy of encouraging progressive purity tests and thus balkanizing the left (i.e., "divide and conquer").

 

In elections, when choosing a metaphorical bus driver, you have to answer some key questions: 

• What's the driver's stated destination, and is that credible? A driver who says he's going West but lies and always goes East could be acceptable to a passenger heading East. 

• What's the driver's track record and route to see if that's viable? If there's no road, what are the solutions to overcoming obstacles? Sometimes, the electorate solely wants a driver who will avoid a crash, and everything else is secondary.

 

 If you don't believe in a democratic republic, then you need another system, and it's tough to make the case that anything other than oligarchy will ultimately prevail ("He who has the gold makes the rules"). Plato wanted the most honorable, intellectual elite to rule. But who would determine who merits becoming such a "guardian" and what's preventing those who currently have the most power from fraudulently designating themselves as the elite guardians?

 

It's especially relevant, in this period of rapid technological advancement, that civilization usually tends to embrace either diversity or uniformity. If it's uniformity, you better hope your particular sub-tribe prevails, or life will be miserable for you and all the outside tribes that lost. If it's diversity, such a pluralistic society will naturally encounter some conflict as the rival tribes have differing issues, priorities, and preferred directions. 


But so long as the consensus won't accept any tribe's absolute insistence on uniformity, you can coexist. That's generally the premise of the U.S. Constitution: enshrined rights to "free speech" and "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" are integral to diversity and a complete rejection of uniformity. 


All reasonable people acknowledge the imperfection of the original U.S. Constitution, if for no other reason than it accepts slavery and excluded voting rights for women. Amendments and the Supreme Court's evolving interpretations have, over time, tended to modernize the laws more appropriately. 


Yet, the founders couldn't remotely fathom a future with an inevitably shrinking workforce due to A.I./robots ascendency. Unless one accepts genocide, MULTICULTURALISM and TOLERANCE need to take hold, permanently, before robots calcify the division between the owner-overlords and the oppressed (i.e., the doomed). Before such ubiquity of robots, there has always been a chance of a French Revolution-style uprising (the so-called "time for guillotines" where the underclass horrifically slaughters the 1%). But when robots can substantially do all of those underclass jobs, the 99% simply won't have the proximity or resources to execute. Consequently, for the good of the entire 100%, the citizenry needs to guarantee diversity before the robots can institute uniformity.


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Tuesday, December 20, 2016

How to Name Virtually Any Business (or Movie Title):

FWIW - Here are my semi-secret "rules" of naming virtually any business (or movie title):

1) Unless you're "ambush marketing", your name/title must be uniquely Google-able (or IMDb-able for film titles) for customers' searches and trademark issues. This normally means you've got to register the ".com" domain cleanly otherwise you should probably pick something else.

2) The name should have as few syllables as possible - otherwise it'll be shortened, initial-ized, or acronym-ed which will then function as the true name (see FedEx). Also note: domains with more letters tend to lose/miss more customers.

3) It should be easily spelled so as not to confuse customers (otherwise you should register domains for ALL the alternate/incorrect spellings and have them redirect to the main/correct one).

4) It shouldn't have any negative connotations (even in other languages).

5) It should have positive and, ideally, descriptive connotations (but not too generically descriptive for fear of losing trademark protection).


And here's my previously secret step-by-step recipe/strategy for naming:

a) Brainstorm a big list of "ingredients" words that have anything to do with your product/film. Focus on nouns but accept anything that pops in your head. If you don't have at least 50 then keep going.

b) Then expand that big list by seeking those words' synonyms and related words (and for films especially seek out idioms, common phrases, and memes to riff off of).

c) Then look at that mega-list of ingredients and start cramming words & syllables together until certain matches jump out at you as especially good. Pay particular attention to opportunities for humor/irony and even puns.

d) Assemble your newly formed "candidate name/title" list and filter it using the "rules" above.

e) Then reduce it down further to your favorite 7 (really try to limit it to no more than 7) and get feedback from friends, family, colleagues, experts (including laymen/regular folks).

f) Consider the potential visuals. Find logo & poster synergies. Create great images that come from within the candidate names/titles or ones that can effectively compliment the name/title (even if that image has little to nothing to do with the name/title). Images should evoke the emotion your product/film seeks to provide to the customer.

g) Once you have your top 3 candidates just make a gut decision of which you think works best and run with it. Good luck!

NOTE: I have some other truly top-secret methods about this but I keep them to myself to maintain a competitive advantage. ;-)
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Wednesday, April 13, 2016

April 13, 2016: Read these 5 Crucial Articles That Should Inform Your Politics...

April 13, 2016: Read these 5 Crucial Articles That Should Inform Your Politics...

1) U.S. Corporations actually pay historically low taxes and somehow 20% of profitable companies pay zero taxes: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/276103-gao-many-companies-had-no-tax-liability

2) Nixon escalated the drug war to imprison Blacks and liberals - so said his domestic policy chief and convicted henchman John Ehrlichman: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/

3) Princeton research shows only the rich influence laws: http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy

4) Lead poisoning is still a major problem: http://time.com/4286726/lead-poisoning-in-america/

5) Government regulations cleaned up Los Angeles air quality by 47% and kids are demonstrably healthier for it: http://abc7.com/health/usc-study-shows-air-quality-improvement-boosts-kids-health/1288430/

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Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Hitler & the Nazis and the Koch Brothers' Family - Some Key Dates on the Timeline (part 1)

Hitler & the Nazis and the Koch Brothers' Family - Some Key Dates on the Timeline (part 1)
(this post does not focus on Fred Koch's work with Stalin in the Soviet Union and Stalin was responsible for well over 3 million deaths)

1926 - Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is published - it has undeniably genocidal passages and full-throated advocacy for war crimes

February 27th, 1933 - Reichstag Fire Decree - the Nazis' first big step
The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens.  It was used as the legal basis for the imprisonment (Without Trial) of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. 

March 22, 1933 - Dachau Concentration Camp established and imprisons (in forced labor camps) political prisoners, Communists and then Jews, Foreign Nationals, Homosexuals et al. -  (ultimately there are over 32,000 documented deaths there)

April 7th, 1933 - Jews officially barred from Civil Service, University and State positions in Germany

>>> 1934 - Mr. Fred Koch (father of the "Koch Brothers" and from whom they inherited hundreds of millions of dollars) has a company known as Winkler-Koch Engineering, which has "provided the engineering plans and began overseeing the construction" of a large Nazi oil refinery in Hamburg (with Adolf Hitler's personal approval). 

September 15, 1935 - Nuremberg Laws institutionalize racism and anti-semitism 

>>> 1938 - patriarch Fred Koch wrote that "the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy and Japan" 
Fred Koch wrote that "the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy and Japan". To make sure his children (the "Koch Brothers") got the right ideas, he hired a German nanny. The nanny was such a fervent Nazi that when France fell in 1940, she resigned and returned to Germany. 

November 9, 1938 - "Kristallnacht" - Pogrom against German Jews where 91 murdered + 30,000 sent to concentration camps + 1,000 synagogues burned

January 30, 1939  - Hitler in Reichstag speech: "if war erupts it will mean the Vernichtung (extermination) of European Jews"

1939 through 1945 - World War II

>>> 1960 - Fred Koch self-published his own book, A Business Man Looks at Communism where he wrote : "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America." He strongly supported the movement to impeach chief justice Earl Warren, after the supreme court voted to desegregate public schools in Brown v Board of Education. His sons became Birchers too, although Charles was more enamored of "antigovernment economic writers" than communist conspiracies.

>>> 1960s through 1980s - The Koch Brothers (Charles & David Koch themselves) repeatedly financially support Holocaust Deniers and defenders of Nazis

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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Couple Quick Thoughts on AI (finally posting them)

Apparently everyone familiar with Ray Kurzweil's "Technological Singularity" concept of AI accepts the notions of that:

1) Limitless, ever-growing significant knowledge & advancing intelligence is possible and therefore inevitable
2) Such growth must accelerate beyond human control

Though both may be likely, I think neither is necessarily true.

1)-Response: There are limits on the speed of light and amount of information that can ever be communicated over circuits or fiber optics. To believe those limits must necessarily be exceed-able is tantamount to faith in magic. Consequently, such limits would necessarily put some upper limit on advancing technology or AI (even if that would be unfathomably more advanced than we can even conceive of today).

2)-Response: Chaos theorists love to posit that evolvable nanobots (like self-aware, ever-learning AI) would destroy the earth because aberrations would necessarily grow out-of-control. But I think it's legitimately possible that such aberrations could compete with each other and die out for myriad causes (just like countless bacteria in the real world). Not to mention the possibility that whatever "controls" we institute on such nanobots (metaphorically, our "white blood cells") would evolve as fast or faster as the aberrations, thus always beating the aberrations.

NOTE: I don't claim these ideas to necessarily be original (haven't done enough research to know all that's out there). Please advise me if you've seen them before so I can give proper credit and/or correct myself.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

On Torture: Keep it illegal and Only Consider Pardoning the Torturers Who are Proven Heroic

We keep seeing hypothetical ethical situations about where and when one would approve of torture.
I those are the wrong framing for a useful discussion. 
In the real world you never get metaphysical/God-like certainty about the tradeoff. The better analogy is POKER!
It's a complex cost-benefit analysis of each of the options and all of those options' ramifications.

SIDE NOTE: I'm avoiding the facile semantic debate about torture vs. "EIT" (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques). Waterboarding has always been considered to be torture (by everyone outside of the GWBush administration) worldwide for decades. And refusing to do standard rehydration (by mouth or IV) and instead doing forceable "Rectal Rehydration" is rape by any reasonable definition. And rape is always torture. This should be obvious to everyone.

OK, back to the ethical debate on Torture...

When you endorse torture of any kind you're necessarily claiming that all of the following is true:
1) You think Torture results in more useful information from the tortured than alternative methods.
2) You think think the cost of false information given under Torture is minimal or worth it.
3) You think the world's diminished respect for those who Torture is minimal or worth it.

And I believe that this is a testable hypothesis that results in an objectively verifiable set of data.
Here are the responses to those 3 points:
• 1) The Senate Report (based on the CIA's own internal reports) confirms that all of the info used to kill Osama Bin Laden was collected through standard (non-EIT) interrogation before EIT were employed. There is not a single specific instances of actionable intelligence that was acquired solely through torture.

• 2) Senator McCain and countless others confirm that victims of torture will regularly lie and say whatever they think the torturers want to hear. The cost of exploring such lies is massive and also results in "opportunity costs" of not exploring better sources of intel. Check out CIA and other government reports pre-9/11 that all concluded that "torture doesn't work".

• 3) We went to war with Iraq's Saddam Hussein (and Syria's Assad) at least in part because they were torturers. Saddam had "Rape Rooms" that inspired armies worldwide to oppose him. Now that the world knows America anally rapes its captured with big tubes (to obscenely "rehydrate" contrary to all medical authorities) should we not expect armies worldwide to oppose us?

FINALLY: Look up what George Washington said about torture or how America dealt with the German enemies in WWI and WWII (even against the friggin Nazis!). Anyone who defends torture now should be ashamed of themselves.  And if they want to rationalize "we gotta keep America safe no matter what" then they should accept the following:

• Keep Torture illegal knowing that if we ever do encounter the perfect hypothetical "ticking bomb" scenario that someone will step up and torture the suspect anyway. That torturer should accept the consequences of torturing (e.g. him being sentenced to prison) even if it resulted in heroic saving of American lives.

And if the torturer was completely right then either the jury will not convict or the president can commute/pardon him. But in every other situation the torturers and those who gave the orders should be convicted for such disgusting sadism. There is value and benefit in being "GOOD". Let's be good for goodness sake.
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Sunday, November 25, 2012

New Predictions: Fiscal Cliff Deal will Cap Deductions Thus Hurt Real Estate

After watching the "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" today (11/25/12) as well as my standard sources of news (Rachel Maddow, TYT, NPR and regular random samplings of FoxNews) it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the deal to avert the "Fiscal Cliff" will likely include a capping of tax deductions (especially including mortgage deductions).

If that first prediction is correct then my consequential second prediction is that Real Estate prices will continue to stagnate or may even fall again.

The reasoning is pretty straightforward (assuming mortgage deductions are indeed capped):

1) Owners of multiple properties (especially those who have rental properties) will be hit very hard by the capping of such tax deductions (because it is conceivable that there could be no such cap on one's primary residence). Such a substantial increase in taxes (by virtue of the fact that less rental revenue will be offset by these new, smaller deductions) will result in those owners taking home less profit which will result in marginally profitable rental properties becoming unprofitable. 

2) These newly unprofitable rental properties will encourage sales of those properties (especially for those owners who are highly leveraged).

3) This downward pressure on sale prices will be in effect for at least as long as those new tax policies (capping deductions) are in effect thus limiting price rebounds (perhaps more so than the upward pressure of slow to moderate economic growth in America).

4) Secondarily, those considering buying another house (especially as a rental property) will have substantially less incentive to do so. This reduction in profitability of rental properties (due to less deductions) will further depress prices because the sellers will have fewer & less-motivated buyers than they would have had under the current tax code.

CONCLUSION: Be very careful about buying a rental property until after the fiscal cliff deal is set (unless you're massively low-balling on the price - because, of course, if the property is cheap enough there may still be worthwhile profit to exploit).

BONUS PREDICTION: I suspect this new path (of capping deductions) will most personally hurt those making between $200k to $1mil per year who have a lot of property loans. But it will also make mansions (high end real estate) substantially less attractive because they will cost buyers/owners much more money to own (in the form of more taxes due to limited deductions) compared to the current system. This will likely reduce the amount of loans taken out to buy such properties going forward. This will probably place some significant downward pressure on high end real estate prices for the foreseeable future (IMHO).
CAVEAT: It is not clear to me if this downward pressure on high end real estate prices will overtake the upward pressure that results from the increasing income inequality dynamics (i.e. when the "rich get richer" there is necessarily a greater than average pressure to bid-up high end real estate compared to the rest of the real estate market).

SIDE NOTE: This all ties in to one of my grander theories that most lobbyists (and by extension virtually all non-progressive politicians) have the greatest incentives to protect the top "1/100th of the top 1%" and not actually the top "1%" (let alone the top 5%). A lobbyist (like Grover Norquist, who I truly believe has hurt America) doesn't primarily make money from the top 5% or even the top 1% - even if he most associates with people in those echelons. Instead he gets direct payments from hectomillionaires & billionaires and logically thus considers them to be his bosses. Consequently, policies that would benefit the the top 5% or 1% (like not capping deductions) are sacrificed in order to protect the hectomillionaires & billionaires (who would be most "hurt" by increases in tax rates increasing to 39.6% like they were under Clinton and like those tax policies that Obama specifically campaigned on - which is what the current GOP is most fiercely fighting against).

If those in the top 1% (and especially all those in the top 5%) were smart they'd recognize the danger of superpacs & lobbyists who primarily protect the hectomillionaires & billionaires. Without the superpacs & lobbyists, our elected officials would likely be more influenced by those with whom they most associated (i.e. those in the top 5%). This likely would result (IMHO) in more steeply progressive taxation that collects massively more from hectomillionaires & billionaires (like America did in the 1950s through the the 1960s). There would thus be a greater counter-balance against the insidious & as yet unmitigated increase in income inequality (which I have long preferred to refer to as "income extremity").

MOST IMPORTANTLY: This are just my amateur musings. I have no financial or legal bona fides. Be sure to consult with your financial services professional before making any investment decisions. Remember that just because my previous predictions have proven correct a high percentage of the time doesn't mean they all will. I could easily be wrong. We'll see.

LINKS:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fiscal_cliff

• http://corpania.blogspot.com/2006/12/forget-inequality-problem-is-extremity.html 


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