Money

January 29, 2021

There’s an age-old question… would you rather fight a horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?

OK, it’s not an age-old question. It actually materialized in 2003, in a UK newspaper, but really rose to prominence in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread in 2012… where it was a question posed to president Barack Obama. Obama never got around to answering it, but the question wound up on “the crawl” on TV, and the rest is history. Here are my thoughts…

While a 1,000 pound duck would be formidable indeed, it’s one single enemy… and a coordinated, well-timed attack is all you’d need to neutralize it. On the flipside, I know horses… and I can tell you, dealing with a single angry horse is a handful; a potentially dangerous one… and 100 angry little horses would step on you, kick and bite you relentlessly, and not give up… so yeah, I’ll try my luck against the big duck.

Speaking of Reddit, and fights between one big thing vs. lots of little things… you’ve probably recently heard the words GameStop and AMC and short squeeze and hedge funds…

In a nutshell, here’s what’s going on:

The opposite of the well-known game-plan of buying a stock when you think it’s going to go up, holding it, and then selling it for a profit… is what’s called “shorting” the stock… and it’s what you do when you think a certain stock is over-priced. What you do is borrow the shares from “someone”, sell them… and then wait till the price goes down… and then buy it back at the lower price. Then you return the shares you borrowed and pocket the difference.

Huge (multi-billion-dollar) hedge funds like to short stocks here and there… for varying reasons. Given that their mandate is to hedge risk (it’s in the name…), part of that might be to take positions that go contrary to upward market movements… to hedge the risk in case the opposite happens. But also, using the same analytics and metrics they’d use to picks stocks they think will go up, they do it in the opposite direction.

Arguments can be made about the ethics behind shorting stocks to begin with; you’re basically betting and hoping that a company will do poorly. It goes against a lot of principles, like… well, you can’t sell a house or a car or anything else without actually owning it… why is this different? Because, at least for the moment, the people who run the exchanges say it’s ok. It doesn’t go against the principle of making money… therefore, as long as capitalism exists, so will short-selling.

One thing about buying shares and being wrong… the worst thing that can happen is you lose what you put into it. I buy 10 shares of ACME at $100 each and ACME goes bust and the shares become worthless… I’m out $1,000. But if I short 10 shares at $100 and it goes up to $200… well, I need to come up with $2,000 worth of ACME shares to give back to whoever lent them to me… and it means buying them back from the open market. I have the original $1,000 I made from the sale, but now I have to come up with $1,000 out of my own pocket to cover it. And if ACME went up to $900 a share, now I’m out $8,000 of my own money… and here’s a big problem. Zero is the limit on the way down, but there’s no limit on the way up… and what do I do when I see the price crawling upwards…?

There are two options. One is… cut my losses… buy it back at the higher price, give back the shares, and pour a glass of my finest single-malt scotch, while pondering recent life decisions. Or… double-down. Sell more. If I thought selling it at $100 was a good idea, then selling it at $200 must be a better idea… and now, when it goes down, I’ll make even more. Great plan if it actually goes down… but what if it keeps going up? And now everyone who’s short is buying back in, further lifting the price and causing more panic… this is what’s called short-squeeze, and it’s what sends stock prices soaring very quickly. But here’s an additional wrinkle…

Technically, when you short a stock, you would be borrowing the shares to do so. The brokerage house facilitates that for you (and takes a fee, of course). However, these brokerage houses play a little loosey-goosey with that… not too different from the banks, I suppose, in that if everyone suddenly ran to BMO and demanded all their money, there simply wouldn’t be enough to cover it. They’re counting on not everyone needing all of it all at once.

At the moment, something like 150% of GameStop shares are short. In other words, more shares of GameStop have been sold than actually exist. So… when the people who actually own shares, or own call options (which give them the right to purchase shares at a specified price) suddenly say “Hey, I’d like my shares now” – those shares are nowhere to be found. Frantic buyers who need to come up with them will just keep driving the price higher and higher.

An army of Redditors (from /r/WallStreetBets) decided months ago that if enough people bought up certain heavily-shorted stocks and/or call options (GameStop, AMC and some others) and then promised to hold them, it would drive up prices significantly. One of their targets, GameStop, was being shorted incessantly by a huge $13-billion hedge fund called Melvin Capital.

Shares in GameStop were below $3 last year… and not long ago (early November) were trading at around $10 a share. Then, the Reddit army started buying it up, feeding into the Melvin shorts. The prices started going up… and up…. and more up. And Melvin, instead of covering their losses and taking a bit of a hit… sold more, where it was quickly gobbled up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This morning, GameStop shares opened at $380. They went as low as $250 and as high as $414 before closing out the week at $325. And there are still a colossal amount of open shorts that will need to cover eventually.

A lot of these stock-dabbling Redditors, swearing to hold it till the cows come home, have made thousands of dollars. Some have made millions. Melvin Capital has lost $5 billion. And it’s not over yet.

Let’s rephrase the original question… and remove the human… who would win the fight, one big duck or an army of little horses?

Perhaps I’m a little biased because I’ve been betting horses all my life, but this is no different… and it’s not 100 of them; it’s literally millions. The big old-school Wall-Street Scrooge McDuck might not have that huge pit of money to swim around in much longer.

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By |2021-01-29T17:03:03-08:00January 29th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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January 26, 2021

There’s an episode of Star Trek:TNG where Captain Picard and the gang happen upon an odd planet… completely devoid of life, save for a small but picturesque patch of land where a peaceful, old couple (of humans) are living.

This guy (let’s call him Kevin) and his wife tell Picard that an alien race came by and wiped out everyone… except, for some unknown reason, them.

There’s far more to the story, but as it turns out, the alien who did the real wiping out was Kevin himself… who only looks human, but actually isn’t. Some aliens did come by and attack the colony… and Kevin’s wife was killed in the attack. Kevin, who’s actually a very powerful alien, took it upon himself to exact revenge by wiping out all of the aliens… and not just the ones that had attacked him, but he scoured the universe and found them all. Fifty billion aliens; the entire species wiped out. And now he was just trying to live his eternal life on this patch of land with a reconstructed illusion of his wife.

What do you do with a being that wipes out 50 billion others? Picard concludes that they, humans, are not qualified to be his judge… because there are no laws to fit the magnitude of the crime. Picard and The Enterprise leave, and he puts out the word to Starfleet; stay away from this planet. Leave Kevin alone. You really don’t want to piss him off.

Indeed, the punishment needs to fit the crime… and there are places in this world where that’s the case. Finland, for example… where in 2015, a successful businessman by the name of Reima Kuisla was caught doing 64MPH in a 50MPH zone… which translates to doing 103km/h in an 80 zone. That’s not even excessive speeding, and I’m sure more than one of you reading this today were on a highway today, where the limit is 80, and where you were exceeding 100. You’re lucky you didn’t get caught; that’s a $173 fine and 3 points.

Mr. Kuisla wasn’t so lucky… he got caught, and because of his Ten Million Dollar income, paid a fine of $80,000. To scale it down, that’s like someone making $50,000 a year being fined $400. Sounds about right… proportional fines, depending on the income of the perpetrator.

There are more extreme examples, but they seem to top out at… one million dollars. Yes, in 2010, a 37-year-old Swede had just taken possession of his new Mercedes SLS AMG in Germany and was driving it home. The cameras that clocked him only go up to 200km/h, which is what they captured… but the Swedish cops that caught up with him clocked him at close to 300km/h. He claimed he thought the speedometer of his new car was broken and that he was just putting it through its paces. Sure. That’ll be a million dollars, please.

Which brings us to a couple of local lowlifes, the ex-CEO and his actress-wife, whose actions have made them front-page news all over the world… and somewhat tarnished the view that all Canadians are thoughtful and polite.

It takes a lot of planning and a lot of disregard for others… to charter a plane, head to the middle of nowhere, lie repeatedly, and get into a vaccine line-up that’s supposed to be for, more than anyone else, indigenous elders. They lied about quarantining, they lied about why they were there, they lied about where they worked. And as soon as they got what they wanted, they high-tailed it out of here. Or, tried to… but that’s where piece-of-shit narcissists usually mess up. They’re so completely caught up in the ME ME ME of their existence that they forget everything and everyone else. Ten seconds after they got their vaccines, you can imagine hearing them saying to each other, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand”… and it was that urgent “straight to the airport” request that made people wonder… ok, who exactly are these people?

They were slapped with $500 fines, which is a joke… but, to some extent, like Picard… I’m not sure we have laws in place to punish this sort of thing appropriately. Like the Finnish businessman, the now-former CEO of Great Canadian Gaming Corp. made $10M last year. Is $80,000 an appropriate fine?

It’s a good start, but there needs to be more. A lot more. There are tens of millions of dollars to follow for that guy, thanks to stock options and the sale of the company… but it’s about a lot more than money. I’m not sure the answer is jail time; I think the answer is community service, and lots of it… and all of it in the community they affected.

Remote communities like Beaver Creek can probably use some help. Wash dishes at the restaurant. Mop up the airport. Or, actually, go work at that famous motel they don’t actually work at — and clean some rooms. Contribute back to the community, given that what you stole from them is difficult to pin a value on. Maybe consult with those indigenous elders from whom you stole the vaccine… and ask them what they need. And, might I suggest… you start with a series of apologies… to them, to their entire community, and to the countless others who deserve and need that vaccine ahead of you… but, like everyone else, are patiently waiting their turn.

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By |2021-01-26T20:20:45-08:00January 26th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Business & Economics, Science of COVID-19, Movies, Music & Entertainment|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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January 24, 2021

Weird things happen when you’re dealing with big numbers, but when you get to them slowly. Here’s a very basic example, speaking purely with respect to financial wealth:

A man whose net worth is only $1 is not rich. Far from it. Let’s call him poor.

If you take a man who’s poor and give him $1, he’s still poor.

Given those two starting premises, start a little loop. Give the guy another dollar. Is he rich now? No. $3? No. $4? No. But you loop a billion times, and of course, now he is. Somewhere along the line, he went from being poor to being stable… and, continuing, at some point he went from being stable to being well-off. Then he graduated to financially secure… on his way to rich. A dollar a time, he crossed all those lines.

The thing is… it’s difficult to figure out where to draw those lines, because they’re big, wide and blurry. And I don’t mean because everyone would have different definitions and opinions. I mean just you. Pick a number where you’d consider the guy to be unarguably in one of those categories. Now think of a number that’d plant him squarely in the next category up. Those two numbers are far apart. Even if you try to bring them closer together, you’ll still never get to a point where it flips by $1.

This same concept is what plays with our minds in elections. What difference does my one vote make? We keep getting told that it makes all the difference; every vote counts, etc. But the truth is… all other things being equal, your one little vote doesn’t matter. It’s quite a paradox. Take the last election, wherever you are. Change nothing except your one vote… remove it from the election. Did that change anything? Of course not. But also, of course, everything changes if more people start thinking like that. Many elections went the other way (Hilary 2016 comes to mind) because so many people become convinced that their one little vote wouldn’t matter (like people in Michigan) that they didn’t bother voting. At some point, even though it got there one missed vote at a time, it made a difference.

I’ve been accused of being a bit preachy and/or being a little shame-bashing on those making some individual decisions based on how they’re navigating their lives these days; choices with which I don’t agree with, with respect to travel or socializing or whatever… let alone masks and vaccines… but the intent of this post is not that. I’m just here to share a thought… reflecting on how we suddenly hit tipping points where everything changes… and how we got there.

Most rags-to-riches stories are long and drawn out; tiny, incremental gains over long periods of time. Perhaps not dollar-by-dollar, but it’s not a fine line that was hopped over one particular day.

Similarly, it’s like that with a pandemic. I look at these numbers every day, and there’s micro-movement in some direction. On a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem to matter much. But when you take a step back and look at it from a bigger-picture point of view, one day you realize you’re in a totally different place. These days, that looks a lot better than it did just a few short weeks ago. But it’s worth remembering how we got here, and how we’ll get to wherever we’re going next… one dollar or one step or one person… at a time.

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By |2021-01-24T20:11:48-08:00January 24th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics|Tags: , , , , , |2 Comments
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January 17, 2021

Once in a while, the trunk of your car fills up with enough crap that it’s time to clean it all out. I usually grab a big garbage bag and dig in. Whatever is garbage goes straight into the bag. Whatever shouldn’t remain in the trunk finds its way to the floor of the garage, and eventually finds its way to where it needs to go. And the rest remains in the trunk, where it belongs. And if there wasn’t enough garbage to justify throwing the bag away, the bag itself also winds up in the trunk… for further use in the future.

Many years ago, I drove to Seattle. Then I came home, and the border guard, bored I suppose – or maybe I looked guiltier than usual – made me get out and pop the trunk.

“What’s this?”

“It’s garbage.”

“You can’t bring American garbage into Canada!”

Fair point… but I explained…

“It’s not American garbage… it’s Canadian. That bag has been in my trunk all weekend.”

“You took your garbage for a ride in the U.S.?”

I suppose I did. Not on purpose, but whatever. Who cares.

Well, he cared. Fine, confiscate it.

“I don’t want your garbage!”

Fine, I’ll throw it away. Where’s the nearest…

“You can’t throw it away here!”

What an odd stalemate. Eventually, he let me go. With my garbage.

I was reminded of this episode because something else (which I’ll get to shortly) reminded me of the opposite… the time we were returning from Seattle after a long weekend. When you do that, be prepared to wait… the border waits are brutal on those Monday nights. But this time, traffic just kept flowing… how odd. Tons of volume, but we never stopped… just slowly crawled toward the border… where all the lanes were open, and there were border guards just waving people through. Go, don’t stop, welcome home, have a nice evening. This was pre-9/11, but still. Wow.

On one hand, I was happy to not have to wait. On the other hand, two things bothered me. One was… well, you know how there are people who keep every receipt, meticulously add up what they spent, who spent it, what it was, how much it was, both in US and Canadian dollars? I’m one of those people. I was ready to answer any question the agent would ask. All that work for nothing. Annoying, but not as important as point two… which was, what a joke. What a mockery of all the times so many people have been stopped for no reason, been given the third degree for no reason, searched for nothing. And now, all the cigarettes and booze and full gas tanks and maybe drugs and guns all flowing into Canada… because I guess they were too understaffed that day, or too tired of dealing with the monotony… or were just realizing none of them would get to go home till 6am with so much traffic to handle. Sure, some stuff will get through. Whatever.

The rules that those people enforce exist for a reason, and when they decide to ignore them, as briefly as it might be, they compromise the integrity of the entire thing. What is the point? What was ever the point?

On that note, we have a rule in place at the moment. If you’re flying into Canada, you have to prove you’re C19-free. Take a test and show the test results at check-in… or you’re not getting on the plane. Very straightforward, and it applies to everyone.

Except, for some reason, not everyone. Like, not Haiti. Why not Haiti? Since the start of the year, flights from everywhere else have had this requirement. And the answer is simple: Haiti, nobody’s example of a first-world country, doesn’t have their shit together when it comes to testing. So rather than just say “No”, we, being the polite Canadians we are, say “Don’t worry about it.”

As a result, two flights from Haiti that arrived in Montreal (Jan 10th and 13th) were so infested with C19 that the post-flight alert that went out to the passengers was not the typical “rows 6 to 10 may have had an exposure”; it was “all rows”. Basically, if you were on either of those planes, you came in contact with someone who was found to be infected.

I had little sympathy for that guy from Kelowna who got stuck in Lake Tahoe, having decided his ski trip was “essential”. He got stuck when the regulations kicked in, and had no way to get a quick test… so he was stuck for three or five days. Cry me a river.

But… had he decided to go waterskiing in Haiti instead, no worries.

The issue isn’t so much with the haphazard rules that seem to appear and rule our lives; borders have always been hit and miss. When you head into the U.S. (and/or come back home), the experience will be greatly defined by what border agent you get, and what sort of day they’re having. That’s just an accepted part of it. Sometimes they’re harsh with the rules. Sometimes they couldn’t care less.

But in the middle of a raging pandemic… whether it’s a self-entitled skier from the interior, or a bunch of tourists in London… and/or pretty-much everyone else… what is the point if it doesn’t apply to everyone?

“Hey, teacher, I didn’t feel like studying for the test today. I mean, I realize everyone else is prepared. I’m just not. Is it ok if I just don’t write it?”

“Oh, of course. I’ll just give you a pass”.

That’s not how it works… we don’t live in a “everyone is equal but some people are more equal than others” society. At least, we’re not supposed to… but stuff like this causes a lot grumbling; a lot of well-justified grumbling. If politicians are going to make rules, make them so that they apply to everyone… and enforce them. Or don’t make them at all.

And/or have a very eloquent staffer ready to write some poetic excuses to the families of people who died of C19 as a direct result of those flights.

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By |2021-01-19T13:05:22-08:00January 17th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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December 26, 2020

Happy Boxing Day! Now that you’ve unboxed the gifts and boxed up the Christmas, you can relax… and hopefully Santa was good to you. Hopefully you got something meaningful that’ll last a long time; some gift that keeps on giving.

You know what’s an excellent gift that keeps on giving? It occurred to me while running up and down McDonald Beach with the dog… that great dog-beach near the airport.

The people who run the airport, the Vancouver Airport Authority, have never stopped charging the Airport Improvement Fee.

To backtrack a bit… back in the early 90s, YVR realized that with the projected passenger loads expected in the future, the airport was woefully undersized. Vast improvements were needed to deal with the post Expo’86 crowds… and the ever-increasing traffic to-and-from Asia. And they needed to get the money from that somewhere, because, believe it or not, the airport gets no government money.

So, they implemented a simple AIF… a little user-fee tax sort of thing. If you were flying out of YVR, you paid $5 to destinations within B.C, $10 within Canada and $15 everywhere else. These little kiosks popped-up, and you’d line up and wait and buy a little ticket that’d be collected when you went through security. A bit of grumbling ensued by an annoyed public who felt they were once-again getting shafted and wasting time.

Not soon after, they finally figured out how to integrate the AIF into the cost of an airline ticket. No more separate line-ups… it was all transparent. And, oh, how the money rolled in. Twenty million passengers a year times an average of ten dollars each equals a lot. More than $2 billion dollars and counting.

Where’s the money going? Well, it’s gone towards building the best airport in North America ten years in a row. A few years ago, some governing body voted it the best airport in the world. The fact is, whether it’s the new terminal, the new runway, the new outlet mall or just the quiet little museum piece you get to walk through if you land at one of those distant E-gates – the trees and birds and canoe on the water thing – it seems to be money very-well spent.

The AIF was supposed to be temporary but so was income tax during WW2. So were those ugly power-towers on Boundary, north of 1st Ave.

Income tax will never go away. Neither will those towers. And probably, neither will the AIF, and I’m totally ok with that. And by the way, the AIF has changed. Now it’s $5 for travel within B.C. and $25 for everywhere else. I’m totally ok with that too.

I guess that’s not really a gift that keeps on giving; it’s not a gift if it’s being extracted from you… but let’s call it a worthwhile extraction that keeps on giving… there’s a good random thought re Boxing Day, typically one of the busiest travel days of the year… but not when air traffic is down 90%. Maybe next year there will be more excitement on Boxing Day than just taking things out (and putting things back in) boxes.

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By |2021-02-28T16:27:17-08:00December 26th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Travel Stories, Our Dog|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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December 17, 2020

A quick thought with respect to the winding-down of what history will undoubtedly call the ugliest presidency ever… I wonder if it’s occurred to those who support Donald Trump – at least 74,000,000 Americans – that after all is said and done, no matter what you believe is broken and needs fixing… that this wasn’t the guy to do it.

Notwithstanding he didn’t keep the very election promises upon which he was originally elected (the border wall that Mexico will pay for, the healthcare plan that’s just a few weeks away, etc), suddenly there appeared this whole notion of a large, left-leaning group of overlords that’s controlling everything… well, if that’s the case (which it isn’t, but let’s say it is) – Trump has failed miserably in dealing with it. If you’re a staunch Republican who thinks these are real issues, I think you have to admit your guy failed you. You, like him, can scream fraudulent election and all that… so, ok, let’s say it was… it was a huge fix, all aimed at getting Biden elected – Trump, with his genius intellect and intuition saw through it all along; he identified countless examples of voter fraud. But then what?

In four years, he’s appointed more federal judges than any president in history… placing these people in roles with lifetime appointments – roles that had been gleefully held open by Mitch McConnell. These guys, with their frenzied zealous desire to stay in power, did everything they could… and it still wasn’t enough. With all his appointed judges, with all the vague but passionate handwaving, with all of the alleged evidence, look what he managed. Nothing. From the sounds of all that, you’d think it’d be a slam dunk. But no. Zero. What. A. Loser.

Forget for a moment what he’s broken (and there’s plenty) – in some crazy world, one could argue it was for the greater good, and you have to break eggs to make omelettes or whatever. OK, let’s entertain that for a moment… so, sure… lots got broken, yet… nothing got fixed. If there exists a Deep State (there doesn’t) that’s controlling the radical left (it isn’t), then… despite knowing all this, he couldn’t do anything about it. That deep state now sits well-entrenched, now in power, ready to take over the world. Your guy failed you miserably; more miserably than somebody caught by surprise, who didn’t see it coming. This guy saw it all coming, for four years, and was unable to do a damn thing about it. All talk. Zero action. Is this the guy you want leading you?

Setting aside the obvious fact; it’s hard to fix something that’s not broken because it doesn’t actually exist – notwithstanding it’s his main money-raising platform… but let’s forget all that crap. Let’s look at real things where Trump could’ve made a difference… things he promised.

There’s no better healthcare plan, there’s a bit of new border wall, but most of it is renovation… and Mexico didn’t pay for any of it. Hilary isn’t locked up. There’s no renegotiated Iran deal. There are lots of illegal immigrants still around. There’s no right to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states. There’s no freeze on hiring federal employees. There is no end to birthright citizenship. There’s no automatic death penalty for cop killers. Eliminate the federal debt in 8 years? It’s higher than when he came into office. And, oh yeah, his tax returns… we’ll see those any day now, as promised.

Actually, that last one – we might, because of a court order coming next month. Between that and going to prison for contempt, he’ll probably eventually provide them. And then he’ll go to prison for what’s on them.

And yet… some staunch Republicans still stay by his side, sending him their hard-earned money, believing everything he says. Up to you, I guess… he’s going to need friends and he’s going to need money. But, between you and me… I think you could do a lot better than this Loser.

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By |2020-12-17T17:03:00-08:00December 17th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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December 15, 2020

A little more on yesterday’s topic… according to the Washington Post this morning, Trump has doubled-down on his dubious election claims 15 times. Two to the power of 15 equals almost 33,000. So now, he’d have to be putting down over $65,000 to try to win back his original $2 bet… if he were betting red, which I suppose, in a certain way, he is. He’s gone from loser to Loser to LOSER… the only thing that’s changing now is the point-size of the font, but like betting systems that eventually run out of money, the screen can only fit so much as well. We’re pretty-much looking at nothing more than a big capital L now… and yet, if this morning’s torrent of even more election-fraud Tweets is any indication, he’s not done yet. Even Mitch McConnell has thrown in the towel… but Trump? Nope.

If doubling down is the wrong way to bet, is there a right way? Yes… as long as you keep in mind that if you’re betting against the house, you’re going to lose in the long run… no matter what. Unlike poker or horse-racing, where you’re playing against other people, you’ll never beat the house in the long run. Not that it’s easy with poker or horses, but at least it’s possible, and there are some people good enough that they actually do it professionally. But casino games? Nobody is making a living playing slot machines, blackjack, roulette or craps… assuming it’s a “fair” game. There are ways to “game” advantages in all of those, with mechanical aids or card counting… but those change the house odds, and then it’s a whole different story. But assuming you don’t have a roulette computer jammed into your shoe, and/or assuming you’re not able to count cards without getting caught, the house has an edge, and every dollar you bet plays into that edge. If you’re going to bet $100 in Blackjack, mathematically, the soundest way to do it is bet it all at once. That way, the house only gets one shot at imposing that edge on you… not countless times to chip away.

But… it is possible to win in the short term, and it’s possible to have a lot fun doing so… so what do you do to maximize your chances? You do the opposite of doubling down.

With doubling down, all you’re doing is chasing lost money with your own money. Throwing the good after the bad. The key to winning is trying to maximize the opportunity to win while putting the house’s money at risk, not your own. This means taking the big shots with money you’ve already won; not out of your wallet. Here are two examples.

Let’s say you’re going to play roulette… and roulette is a good one because it offers a lot of (close to) 50/50 bets. Roulette has a green zero (and sometimes also double-zero, and, for the truly-clueless, triple-zero), which is where the house gets the edge, but other than that, there are 36 numbers. Half are red, half are black. Half are even, half are odd. Half are 1-18, half are 19-36. All 6 of those half-this/half-that bets are effectively coin-tosses, and return a win of a $1 for every $1 bet.

So… if you’re going to play roulette, say you’re willing to risk losing $200. Take that $200 and cut it into 10 pieces of $20 each. Each of those $20 is one shot, and you will have 10 shots.
You bet your first shot, and we will call that first bet “level one”… and you can bet any of those spots. Say you bet red… and it comes up… black. Oops. It’s ok, you’re only down $20… now, second shot, level one… you try red again, and this time it hits number 7, which is red.

Great! Now you have $40. You take that entire $40 and bet it on… let’s say, black… and this is now level two. Boom, it hits 17 black. Now you have $80. So you take all $80 and bet it on… hmm, 7 and 17 were low… so you bet it on 19-36 – (this was level three) and it hits 35, and you win!

Now you have $160. Now you are on level 4, the final level. Hmm… three odds in a row. You bet your level 4 on even, it hits 2, and now you have $320. And you take that $320 and you put it in your other pocket, and you don’t touch it for the rest of the night. And you go back to level one, with your third shot of $20. And you do that with all ten shots. Some will die right away. Some will advance a level or two. And hopefully, you manage to run a few of them through level four.

Of course, that’s not so simple… but it only takes one out of those ten shots to go the distance for you to walk away a winner. If you do this right, after 10 shots, the $200 gambling pocket will be empty… but, hopefully, the other pocket has $320 in it. Or maybe $640… or more…

The key, of course, is that you’re trying to capitalize on winning bigger amounts by risking only what you’ve won. The adrenaline rush of those level four bets is quite something… and a real sledgehammer to the gut when you lose. Just try to remember, you didn’t just lose $160 – you only lost $20.

Similarly, next time you’re at the racetrack, try this… take $5 and bet it “to show” on the horse you like. As long as the horse you like finishes in the top three, you’ll cash your ticket. It might not be much, but that’s ok, because now you take what you won, maybe $8, and bet it all to show on whatever horse you like in the next race. And if you win, you take that $17 and bet it all to show in the following race. The thrill of running a show parlay up to $400 is also quite a rush; and you’ll learn a lot about yourself when you’re now called upon to bet all of it on some horse whose only redeeming factor is that you like his name.

Gambling, in general, should be treated like an entertainment expense… so as long as you’re willing to lose every penny you’re throwing at it, as long as you have a good time, go for it – and, hopefully, some of this advice helps you win… at least in the short term.

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By |2020-12-15T17:03:51-08:00December 15th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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December 14, 2020

There is a very common betting strategy called the Martingale — you can apply it to red/black on roulette, or blackjack, or any simple game with close to 50/50 odds – where, if the odds are truly 50/50 and you have infinite wealth, you will never lose. Unfortunately, the odds are never really 50/50, and nobody has infinite wealth… so, in the long run, you will actually always lose. And when you lose, it’ll be ugly.

Martingale is more commonly known as the strategy of doubling down, and here’s how it works: Say you’ve decided to bet red on roulette… so you bet 10. If you win, you’ve won 10. Now you bet another 10 and hopefully win again.

But if you lose, you bet 20. Now, when you win, you’ll not only win what you just bet, but you’ll also win back your original loss. And when you win, you can go back to betting 10.

If you lose again… well, now you have to bet 40… but, no worries, it’s 50/50 or whatever, it’s due to come in, etc. And with that bet of 40, you’ll win back everything you’ve already lost… right?

As we’ve learned, exponential growth gets ugly… in a hurry. 10/20/40/80/160/320/640… if you thought it can’t possibly come up black 7 times in a row, you’d be mistaken… it happens far more often than you think, and now you’re having to bet 1280 just to win back everything you’ve lost… and just to profit 10. Eventually you hit the casino limit. Eventually you run out of money.

So, no… doubling down doesn’t work, because there’s no finish line; because infinity is nobody’s version of a finish line. For whatever reason, people still tend to employ this strategy, and I’m not just talking about casino gambling. Today itself provided two examples.

One small example would be this morning’s Wall Street Journal editor defending the disgusting Jill-Biden-bashing piece that I wrote about yesterday. Instead of just apologizing for his appalling lack of judgement, he’s saying it’s no big deal, he’s blaming “team Biden” for the backlash and he’s accusing critics of playing the race card. He’s doubling-down on his mistake, and now he’ll appropriately face further backlash… to which the WSJ will respond with an apology, or, they’ll double-down again. There’s an ugly finish line to examples like that, depending how far they’re willing to take it. Eventually people start unsubscribing. Eventually they lose advertisers. And eventually, when they’ve shredded themselves into the ground, they meekly apologize.

Whatever the reason that prevents them from backing down… business decision, reputation concern, fragile ego… if they could simply admit when they’re wrong, that would be the end of it. But no, they double-down… and without a bottomless wallet of excuses to support their bad judgement, they eventually lose… and it’s much worse than it should have been.

Which leads us to the much bigger example of doubling-down to the point of insanity, and this one also hit the ugly end of the line today – and that is Donald Trump’s insistence that he’s won the election. Today, after numerous and continual double-downs of bullshit, he’s out of ammo with which to bet red. Now the electoral college has cast its votes, as expected, confirming Joe Biden. Now what?

I guess the equivalent would be the guy who’s been betting red on roulette all day and just watched a streak of 15 black show up. He’s out of cash, screaming and yelling that it’s not fair, and as he’s being dragged to the door by security, continues to scream he’s being robbed and denied the opportunity to win it all back.

It’s not altogether a bad analogy. The guy in both examples started with a bad premise, executed poor judgement, doubled-down on it for as long as he could… and will continue to blame, to whoever will listen, everyone else except himself for the outcome. Both deserve to be shown the door.

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By |2020-12-14T17:03:05-08:00December 14th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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December 9, 2020

The denouement (n. the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved) of this pandemic is starting to take shape… and it looks very different, depending where you are. We keep thinking we’re doing ok here in Canada, because we always like to compare ourselves to our neighbours to the south and, indeed, comparatively speaking, things look good here. The problem with that is how catastrophically bad they are in the U.S., and getting a lot worse before they get better. It’s too soon to know how it’ll all play out, but right around the time Trump leaves Washington, three weeks after New Year’s, the scope of how bad it can get will be clearer.

On that note, the denouement of the Trump presidency had the potential to serve up some serious craziness. To some extent, it still does, but now… we’re approaching the last few pages of the last chapter… and things are more likely to close out with a whimper than a bang.

There had been the not-so-irrelevant concern that his stacking of the Supreme Court with hard-core loyalists might actually be phase one of a complete takeover and the end of democracy. What would’ve happened if the SCOTUS had actually played into his bullshit? Thankfully, we’ll never know. They tossed out his claim quickly and firmly with zero dissents. Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania… take your pick. Throw in the other 46 states; Red or Blue, they all have something in common… certified, counted, verified, stamped-for-approval votes. From every legal point of view, Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

The only thing left in Trump’s arsenal would be a full-on civil war… call his boys on standby to take to the streets and show them who’s boss. The issue with that is that no matter what pathetic uprising he may try to instigate, it would be quickly extinguished, and then Trump would be facing one more charge to add to the wall of legal issues he’ll slam into at 100 MPH on January 20th… and that would be treason. That one doesn’t carry jail time; that one carries the death penalty.

None of that will happen. With this sort of stuff, Trump seems to be “big hat, no cattle”. He will retreat to Florida, where, at least, his home is safe. If you’ve ever wondered why criminals and mob bosses wind up in Florida, here’s why…

There exists something called Homestead Creditor Protection. Every state has a different version of it, but basically, it’s how much of your home equity is untouchable by creditors. Even if you’re bankrupt and have to liquidate everything you own to pay off your debts, if your state’s Homestead Exemption is $350,000 and your home is worth less than that, you won’t be forced to sell it. You’re allowed to keep your home, up to the value of the exemption, no matter what… no matter how bankrupt, sued, liable and/or kicked-to-the-curb you are, they can’t take your home. And Florida is the only state where that limit is… unlimited. Like Tony Montana and his mansion and pool and helicopter pad and artificial lake and flamingos and tigers, all the money tied into the primary home and property is untouchable.

Trump bought the second largest mansion in Florida, Mar-a-Lago (126 rooms, 62,500 sq. feet), for $10,000,000 back in 1985. Through property appreciation and extensive renovations, it’s now worth around $160,000,000… and the only way for it to be exempt from seizure would be that it has to be his primary residence. Accordingly, that’s where he and Melania are planning to set up shop.

There had been visions of Trump, at some point, being dragged out of the White House, kicking and screaming. That’s not likely to happen either… but, down the road, from his Mar-a-Lago…? Who knows. At least they’ll know where to find him.

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By |2020-12-09T20:04:23-08:00December 9th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Interesting Words|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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December 3, 2020

A bit of a follow-up to my post a couple of days ago… with respect to Trump’s misinformation campaign… a good question to always ask is “to what end?” – like, why is this happening? What’s the point? Who’s benefitting?

A common answer, the usual lowest-common denominator, especially when dealing with the Trumps of the world, is… follow the money.

So… what was the point of that “interview” a few days ago, where Maria Bartiromo just sat there feeding Trump’s tiring election-fraud delusions? Depends who you ask.

Fox News has gotten into a bit of trouble recently with respect to its audience. The audience doesn’t really care about truth; they just want to hear their version of “facts” regurgitated back to them. So, when Fox started actually questioning the facts being put out there by Trump and his team, things didn’t go well. The most horrible thing that could possibly happen to them (according to Trump), did: Their ratings fell. Accordingly, they needed to do something for their core group… lest they see that entire demographic flee to the further-right-wing media, who are happily waiting for them. They chose to pander a bit of conspiracy bullshit… thrown in with the real news. Instead of discussing important, relevant topics like the pandemic or the impending transfer of power, it was just useless, irrelevant, made-up garbage… ostensibly being broadcast as “news”. Indeed, Fox News is as two-faced as the King of Clubs… but what do they care. Their integrity vanished ages ago.

From Trump’s point of view, it’s pretty simple. Why is he carrying on with this narrative? It’s nonsense. It’s tiring. It’s done. It’s been thrown out of every court. Even his trusty lapdog William Barr is admitting there was no election fraud, much to the dismay of the Trump loyalists who are now calling for his head. There’s an old saying… if you’re flogging a dead horse, dismount.

The answer is that by continuing to preach this crap, he can keep going back to his crowd of 70 million people… asking them to help correct this nefarious misjustice. I actually thought it was a joke that he’d be going out fundraising, to raise money to pay for these lawyers. But that’s what he did. “I need you now more than ever!” said one email. “The Recount Results were BOGUS!” said another.

While the claims of election fraud started well-before the election, his push to fight the results started shortly after November 3rd. It’s not like he could’ve started asking for money to contest a fraudulent election before actually losing it, but the pieces were clearly in place… and launched a few days later. So, in less than a month, he’s raised… more than $170,000,000. That’s one hundred and seventy million dollars.

Astonishing. Where’s all that money going to go? Far less than 1% to the lawyers actually fighting this particular cause. The other 99.7%..? Trump owes lots of money, and much of it starts coming due in 2021… and the money has to come from somewhere.

Ah. That clarifies things significantly. Now we know what Fox gets out of it. Now we know what Trump gets out of it.

The unfortunate victims are the ones who believe what those two unscrupulous sources of information continue to jam down their throats… and that’s the saddest part of it.

Trump, the populist, plays it off like he’s fighting for what’s right, just like you or I would do, and how we’re all victims of some corrupt system… and fighting that system is something we should all do, and he’s the one to lead the charge. What’s ironic is that his brainwashed followers don’t see the irony in it… that the man who swore four years ago that he was going to “drain the swamp” has been filling it with his own collection of swamp monsters, and he himself is the scummiest of the beasts.

Trump is trying to play the victim card, and it’s staggering that it’s working… successfully convincing people how he has his own set of problems, just like you and me. I mean, sure… he got Covid-19, he got laid off, he’s going to have to move, he’s got money problems. A typical 2020 experience like so many others, ha ha.

The real Americans, the real ones suffering… are the ones who are reaching deep into their not-so-deep-pockets, to send Trump money so he can fight an invented fight, while really… he’s just lining his own grimy pockets. The whole follow-the-money thing is, in this case, beyond disgusting.

December 3, 2020

By |2020-12-03T20:40:43-08:00December 3rd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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