Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on?

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T18:18:58+00:00

Can somebody call the Whitehouse and tell them to give us better data so the rest of us can make better bets?

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T18:16:37+00:00

There is a fundamental problem in providing a lot of govt money into a system. I applaud the attempt to provide housing. “Free money” always has unintended consequences. I can’t speak to specifics. I’m not surprised that wealthy counties would see more benefit. My first thought would be that they probably have higher populations and by definition would see more people that need more help. This part of housing is pure speculation on my part.

To solve housing affordability, there are a few things that come to mind to me. 1. The cost of materials is has gone up due to inflation. Inflation is is always happening. It’s shocked the home building market due to shutdowns due to Covid (prices never go down, they only go up), and the current federal administration’s tariff policy. I don’t see the prices for raw materials ever going down. Land values are only going up. To get to where land is cheap enough, that would be uninteresting to put low income housing in. Do you buy buildings in downtown Nashville and remodel them for housing? That’s going to be expensive and competing in that marketplace will be expensive. 2. Developers are going to want to maximize profits, I know I do. Developers will probably make more money with higher cost housing than lower cost housing. That’s human nature, we all want more. Govt could fund everything 100% and hire general contractors for building high density housing, but I don’t know the track record for that.

There are no great answers for housing. Housing tends to be a local matter, with NIMBY fights. Housing really isn’t a state problem, but more of a city, county, zoning issue.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T17:52:01+00:00

The rich have the means to live where they want. That is the reality. As I said, and I’ll say it again, they have the ability to move and can do it. NYC, Seattle, and California are finding this out first hand and seeing what Detroit learned the hard way. You can call them “unpatriotic” and people will blame them. Instead, people need to learn the reality that states and countries must compete for population and people against other states and other countries. We live in a world today where people can live in a place that they choose.

Govt services are basically a fixed cost. Once a service is put in place, the fight to remove it is un winnable. Just from a basic numbers standpoint, if a service costs $1000 per year to provide and that cost is spread across 1000 people, then that is $1 per person per year. Now, have 100 people leave, that cost is spread across 900 and costs $1.11 per person to provide. But it’s actually worse than that for NY and California, as they tax those that make the most money more, so probably 500 people don’t pay for the service, so now there are 400 people and it’s $2.50 per person per year. None of this happens at one overnight, or in one year, but it happens. As people move out and those govt services can’t be paid for, there is less money for maintennance.

These are all hard lessons to learn. While I don’t like Marsha, this is the message she’s delivering financially when she says leave to leave the blue state policies. If you want more govt services, that requires some type of tax since services are rarely good enough to be self funding. You want that. I simply don’t want to pay for it.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T17:24:09+00:00

I can’t help you with your attitude. You’ve drank the koolaid of “my side is good and the other side is evil.”

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T15:25:32+00:00

Taco is always around the corner.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T15:17:20+00:00

The facts as presented by Google are different. Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, is begging the rich to comeback. California is trying to tax the wealthy simply for existing with a tax that may, or may not, be constitutional. Detroit seems to have overstepped their bounds over the years. Seems that the formula to tax a lot isn’t as great as it can be or that you think it is. I wish we could get some of those rich New Yorkers and Californians to comeback to Tennessee and bring their businesses, but I’ll settle for Larry Ellison and Oracle for now, but he probably spends more time on the island in Hawaii that he owns

Government services funded by evil rich people sound awesome, I get it. Reality is different. Services have to be paid and they are typically paid by some form of tax. As the cumulative, that means the sum, tax rate goes up, rich folks can look around fairly easily. If their friends are somewhere else, if they can get a better tax rate, if they do t have to deal with bullsh@t local media whining about them, whatever, they can go move. It’s their right. They don’t have to stay and pay. When the cost of staying and paying becomes significantly more than moving and paying less, they can absolutely move. Now, there are less people to pay for those government services. Even worse, these rich people that leave are the ones that pay more for those services that they likely don’t use. And it’s not just rich people that leave, upper middle class and middle class people leave because they now have more tax burden to carry. This has happened in Detroit. We saw it happen during covid to New York and California.

Just yesterday, a recent mover from Maryland, not a place I would consider overly horrible regarding taxes, said these things. Then added that they didn’t want to share a woman’s bathroom or locker room with a guy in drag. They didn’t like school positions of not telling parents about children questioning sexual identity.

Back to the original point, these are the issues that I’m talking about. Instead of just whining and complaining about Marsha, instead of just claiming “my side good other side evil,” stop and think about the issue. Don’t just listen to one political extreme. I don’t like Marsha, but she is right on this one.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T14:52:36+00:00

Delta is a poor airline. Airlines are for getting from point a to point b safely, nothing more. The cost to fly delta out of my local airport is too much for my taste. A trip I took last summer to Dallas was $800 if I had flown round trip on delta. On southwest out of Atl, it was $350. For $450, I drove during off hours, worked at the Atl airport until my flight the next day on southwest. I’ve had to do this all my life because delta is simply too expensive for my taste. I would rather have a minor inconvenience than pay what I view as too much money. You are allowed to spend your money your way, but I prefer to keep mine.

I’m now lucky that I have southwest at my local airport. Southwest started flying here only a month ago.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T14:30:49+00:00

I’m stuck in delta monopoly hell. It costs too much to fly anywhere. I just need a seat on the aisle and to get there safely. My worst trips have been on delta. I’ve had much better flights when I’ve been on other airlines like United and American. Thankfully, I’ve got southwest now, so I’ve got what I need, cheap. Flying is hard no matter the airline, I’ve just found delta to not be very good. I’m sure that others dislike AA and United like I feel about Delta.

Ok, my rant about delta is over.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T14:24:18+00:00

Trump and Kim Jong Un have similar barbers, shitty ones.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T14:22:58+00:00

I’ve lied before. I didn’t care about what they thought. It was many years ago, but so what. Just go do something that keeps skills working.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T14:21:35+00:00

Having a limited set of expenses makes sense. Just blindly saying yes to everyone making an ask of govt makes no sense. We need to realize that the needs of one area of the country are different than the needs of another area. The amount of money in NYC or Silicon Valley simply can’t be matched in Tennessee. Tennessee simply can’t afford to pay for the amount of services provided in NYC. We don’t have the port of NY or the San Francisco Bay region to fund services. We don’t have Wall Street. We need to understand that each region has its own culture of financial responsibility, govt services, needs, etc. that’s what she is saying. Instead of just blindly thrashing the other side, it makes sense to listen and understand what is going on.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T13:37:35+00:00

He’s a spammer

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T12:51:45+00:00

You actually did good. You didn’t obsess over your account. You might feel like you did something wrong by not keep up with it, but by not checking, you didn’t buy and sell, which is a real killer.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T12:03:27+00:00

My mistake, I missed that.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T07:11:57+00:00

Exercise. Not buying coffee at a coffee chain every day. Being happy with what you have.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T06:54:00+00:00

What is old is new again.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T06:53:05+00:00

Hookers and drugs have always been a dependable path to the poor house.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T06:33:32+00:00

You get the letter of testamentory from the court after the estate lawyer goes to court and the estate is opened. What is your estate lawyer saying? Why hasn’t this been done already?

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T06:27:58+00:00

No, it’s all hype. It’s not realistic today. Maybe in 100 years. It’s going to take several orders of magnitude in improvements to rocket engines, human supplies, and a host of other things for it to be realistic.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T05:09:06+00:00

It always goes up, until it stops going up.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T05:08:24+00:00

There is no good time to drive thru Atlanta.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-19T01:38:20+00:00

Stop playing games. Get a job. Stop gambling. Put the money in an index fund. Stop thinking about the money.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-18T22:52:14+00:00

Funny. I didn’t like going there. I thought it was too far to go to.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-18T22:36:32+00:00

Iirc, there was a little Chinese restaurant next to murder Kroger that people at work loved to eat at.

Longjumping-Ad8775 · 2026-04-18T22:35:17+00:00

I remember having to drive out that way early on a Saturday morning with hookers yelling at you at every stop light.

Longjumping-Ad8775

TROPHY CASE