Bcon

You can’t win, either. And money not invested is a guaranteed loss due to inflation. The hundred dollars that you put in the bank ten years ago, with the low interest rates available, is probably worth about six dollars now. Life itself is a gamble, that what makes it interesting.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

So what do you propose we do about it? The Federal reserve inflates our legally mandated currency by cashing government credit demands and printing up trillions of dollars at the push of a button, diluting the value of the fiat dollars in our pockets through government spending. A dollar from 2018 will buy the same as two cents would have purchased in 1913. In order to just retain the purchasing power of your 'money', you are obliged to multiply your asset value by a factor of fifty, and you are still just 'treading water'. Inflation is the most insidious tax ever to be devised, because not one in a thousand can grasp the mechanism but we all feel its effects.


Life is a risk, certainly, but a gamble? That implies a voluntary choice. Certainly we make many choices in the course of our lives, but to describe 'life' as a gamble doesn't sit well. How many choices do you make that you elect for yourself and how many are foisted upon you either by circumstances beyond your control or because of some unseen consequence of a past action?

It's certainly interesting though...

Bcon

I say life is a gamble by thinking I can cross the street and think I will be okay, but who is to say a drunk driver won’t hit and k**l me. There are no guarantees in life. No matter what you do, anything can happen any time.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

Do you look both ways before stepping into the road? I'm betting you do. You see, crossing a road after observing for safety is one way of minimizing your risk of being hit by a car. That's not gambling, that's 'playing it safe', and in my experience it works every time. Now, if you just walked out without looking, that would be a gamble, and your chances of being hit by a car are increased dramatically. Would you bet your life on the likelihood that you would not be hit? I wouldn't, that's why I look both ways, then cross.

Bcon

Okay, how about tripping or falling down stairs ? No one wants to, but it verybday. Can anyone guarantee that they are going to wake up when they fall asleep. No guyarantees.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

Do you walk around the house blindfolded? Do you smoke in bed? Do you keep a generator in your living room? Do you run with a pair of scissors? (Okay, that last one was somewhat snarky, but you are being somewhat obtuse, so...)

Bcon

So you don’t think it is possible for you to die any way but old age. Wish I had your neck.

There are many things that are a gamble.. do you think you are immune to cancer or other disease? As I said, you pay your money, you take youchance. That’s a gamble.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

Where did I say that? I'm trying (and failing miserably) to point out that there is a difference between a risk and a gamble. Risk is something that you can minimize, a gamble is something you go into blindly, hoping for a favorable outcome. Both are based on probability, though risk is influenced by factors we can introduce, a gamble does not afford that opportunity. When you bet on a racehorse, you take a gamble; when you cross the street, you take a risk.


What on this green Earth does cancer or disease have to do with gambling? Do you wash your hands before you eat? Risk minimization, not gambling.


That's all very well, but what does that have to do with life?

Bcon

I think it is a matter of semantics. All life is not a risk. You create your own risks also. Gamble or risk, there is nothing certain except eventual death in one way or another.

debeda

Very true. Life is a death sentence.

Kevyn

Much of it is done through electronic trading, your holdings are like a kid with his piggy bank in the lobby of the local bank. Take a look at iPhone sales in China and it might give you an idea of why, as far as Facebook they are taking hits from all sides the right wing nutters accuse them of censorship for removal of posts that don’t comply with their terms and conditions, the left wants to crack down on their sharing of users personal information.