ganesh

$154,303 in total bet on your Question :-D Nice job :-D

DUDE< you are #1 on the leaderboard for weekly gains!!!!!

Man I hear ya dude! ... My job doesn't take up as much time as it used to, as I am a telecom contractor, however, business is sooooo slow in Seattle area that I may be getting a part time weekend job as there is nearly NO money coming in the last 2 months. Dude, I missed rent by 2 days, for the FIRST time ever in my life!!! Business is soooo slow it's killing me man, so yeah< I may have to work a part time job, cause I can't quit this one, as since it's being a contractor, jobs appear within a day or two of needing to be done, so it's kinda like always being on call and either you do it full time meaning 5 days a week, waiting for a call, or you must work elsewhere, but you cannot do 2 jobs midweek cause you never know the schedule from one day to the next, I've been doing this for about 2 years and man it can be stressful sometimes. So now I'm looking at part time work like at a restaurant on weekends, to balance my income/expenses :-)
The Lord provides and so I do not stress like I used to, even when I barely made rent, I had faith that work would come through, but I also know that I have an extra 2 days each week open, so it's like God telling me, yep you can work one of those yano. Hehe, so this economy is really tankin' on us here!

Dude, you're number 5 already in the weekly standings, and it still the first day, haha, Good Job :-D

Mork and Destry have pledged to NOT play this game any further until a satisfactory conclusion is made concerning Satyaki's cheating ... PLEASE follow this link and ask ALL of your (friends) to use this link to send hubdub's admins an email of protest over this unethical situation!

http://www.hubdub.com/public/contact
^ There's an email form on that page ^

Please do not be mean, or cruel, or obscene, or anything like that, but please make it clear that this situation MUST be resolved and resolved ASAP!

A sample letter may be as simple as this (please send whatever you feel, this is just an outline):

To HubDub Administrators: In Protest of the "Satyaki" problem.
I (username) proclaim at this moment, that I will not wager another Hdollar nor create any further questions on Hubdub, until this matter is settled.
I believe that it is my right as a member of this site, to expect the highest level of integrity on the part of hubdubs administrators and that even though it is still in beta form, this does not make right the decision on your parts to allow cheaters to prosper at the expense of the rest of the hubdub community.
I believe that cheating is wrong and any known cheating must be disciplined as soon as it becomes known and not allowed to fester. This lack of ethical conduct on the part of the cheater in question is not being dealt with ethically by hubdub, therefore, I am renouncing my support of hubdub.com entirely, until a fair conclusion to this matter has been decided and acted upon up to and possibly including the removal of (Satyaki) from membership.
It is my concrete belief that the legitimacy and reputation of this entire game is at stake and I will no longer participate in a game that is "fixed" against the ethical and rules following players, and placed in the favor of unethical and rule breaking members.
I declare to you admins, that you have treated ALL legitimate hubdubbers in an unethical manner, you have disrespected those who love and support the game and have potentially fed a "gaming" environment that actually encourages cheating against the upright in this hubdub community.
Until this issue is resolved in an agreeable manner, you have lost (username) as a loyal member of this site and I will no longer sing the praises of hubdub.com to anyone, nor invite anyone I know to join, until this matter is resolved.
Sincerely,
(username)

******
I do not know if that is a good letter, but I do encourage ALL members to send "A" letter to hubdub immediately, or else we are just spinning our wheels and I desperately do NOT want to lose this awesome site, especially do to a punk like (Satyaki)!!! If this was any other social networking site, he'd have been banned by now!

And then go to this link and post a protest as well and HELP the HubDub Community regain it's integrity!
http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/topics/i_am_on_strike

lucidstates (dismayed)

Ganesh LOOK at the weekly leaderboard for ALLLLLL of hubdub users, you are #9 compared to EVER SINGLE player on hubdub! Dude, you are killing this week man! You are in the Top 10 out of everyone, haha, rock on man!!!

GANESH LOOK AT THE WEEKLY LEADER BOARD DUDE!!! You are #1 and I am #4 against all my friends!!!!! Dude, I am up only 10% this week and the 2nd best user is up only 18% this week, YOU ARE UP almost 60% THIS WEEK!!!!!!!! Good job man :-D

Ganesh,

Dude I looooooved that you realized this occurred on April Fool's Day, hahahaha, I totally missed that one! I am reading your shout and then it's like, WAIT it wassss on April Fool's Day, Ganesh is right, wow what a coincidence OR conspiracy, hehehehe :-D
Great job spotting that one man! You should write news headlines, that was quick thinking :-P

Also, I am glad you pointed out that the Fed is now there to bail these stupid companies out! I mean seriously, we tax payers are now making sure that multi billion companies survive and now it looks like we tax payers will also make sure mortgages are insured! Come On! Why should I pay for these stupid companies' mistakes! I don't do ANY business with Bear Stearns, I don't do ANY business with Countrywide Home Mortgage, why should we make sure that those buffoooons driving those companies into the dirt get an extra $30 billion from us to keep them running just long enough to throw another $30 billion down the drain?

Your points are well taken Ganesh, good job! I am glad to communicate with you on this stuff, hehe :-D

But yano what? This is how fallen man is, never perfect, because mankind is sinful and greedy and covetous, so they take and take and lie and lie.
Does this resemble what we talked about before concerning "Morals being relative?" I mean, no one is calling this idiocy wrong, after all, what makes it immoral to rip off a less then competent public? It is the rich getting richer at the expense of the middle and lower classes. But as long as the money keeps flowing and the cash registers keep ringing, then no harm no foul, is their view. Power and money corrupt, and this is just a good example of that.

I am just sad that soooo many people are being tricked into thinking all is fine and dandy, when it is not, and so many people will suffer so much financial difficulties because of things like this, it's just sad :-(

lucidstates

Ganesh,

We are being sold a bill of goods man! I don't know if you watched Wall Street today but it is unbelievable what's gone on.

Okay, here's what's up, The Dow closed up nearly 400 points or 3.2% which is the 8th biggest single day gain in history. Man this is outrageous and why am I upset about this? Because 1st quarter earnings are just a week away and Wall Street analysts are acting like "Hey, a new quarter started today, we are over the hump, no "negative pre-earnings warnings" have been issued (yet) for the 1st quarter and the credit markets are showing signs of healing."
Okay, from which planet did this guy just crash land from? Credit markets healing, are you kidding me? And since when did a new quarter starting mean that anything has changed from the last one that just ended so terribly only 24 hours ago?
Wall Street is amazing! Such spin doctors man. We have one magnificent day and all of a sudden, all fears are gone, it is up, up and away from here, or so they'd like you to think. What a crock a bull man! One analyst had the gall to say that "usually stocks begin to rally about six months before the end of a slowdown," okay, so he is reallllly saying that we still have 6 months of poor economic performance coming, and what a ridiculous thing to say when after a 400 point up day, that somehow signals a turn around! What stupidity! We just had 4 days of losses last week, does this analyst even remember last week? Course not, he was so depressed after it that he drank himself into a coma over the weekend, accomplishing what most drinkers attempt to accomplish, forgetting about his real life painful circumstances! I kid, but you get the point I hope.
Take this: UBS issued a pre-earnings warning of a $19 billion write-down (a.k.a. Loss) for the quarter and their stock rocketed up 14.6% today. The stock market has historically averaged less then 14% over the course of a whole year, and so why did this $19 billion losing companies' stock go up by so much? Because they announced that they will issue $15 billion in NEW stock.... Oh wow, how lucky we are for them to do such a thing, right? Wrong! I remember the days on Wall Street (just a few years ago) when if a company announced that they were issuing new stock, the immediate reaction was a drop in their value, right away. Why you may ask? Because if a company has 100 million shares owned by 10 million people, that is to say that each investor owns 10 shares or 10 parts of the company as a whole, if they issue 10 million new shares, then that means that each current investor will then own 9 shares for every 10 they bought, in real value I mean. Your stake in the company shrinks when they issue more shares, it's like printing new money only because you have extra paper but no real asset to back it up, so the other money becomes less valuable. Do you see what I mean? So that is why historically, companies are very cautious when issuing new stock because most investors do not take to kindly to having their stake diminish in value. So now you see why a 14.6% increase is absolutely absurd!

That is why I am writing about this nonsense on Wall Street today. I've told people for years that the stock market is a game, and I did not lose money today, I made money, however, my point is that this is a typical move by greedy Wall Street players that are suckering small time investors into bad investments! Nothing has changed from last week, so why is Wall Street all of a sudden a safe haven for your money instead of gold?

I also mentioned that an analyst claimed that the credit markets are healing. Okay, so where did he get that "hot tip?" We just had the 5th biggest investment bank in the United States collapse 2 weeks ago! Where is this magic turnaround? ***looks under the nearest rock....."Cool, a nickel"....places it in shirt pocket*** I can't find it! So does this mean that people are no longer being foreclosed on? Does this mean that NO other banks will collapse? Does this mean the Fed can stop giving 10's of billions in bailout taxpayer dollars to the big banks (which by the way, are foreclosing on the homes of the very same taxpayers)? Does this mean that consumers are spending more? Does this mean that employment will stop dropping? Does this mean that I can go to Disneyland this year? Why how fine and dandy this is!
Why just yesterday and all of last week, Wall Street thought we were finally entering a recession, hehe, guess we oopsed on that one folks. Cool, now I can go spend wildly again, the good ol' days are here again! Drinks on me folks............. That is until earnings week begins next Monday, then we will see reality set back in, when company after company announces year over year drop in revenues, drop in profits, drop in consumer confidence, etc.

If you read the daily news and believe everything that your eyes take in, then you'd think today was a real sunny day.
TV BREAKING NEWS ... Joint news conference from the White House with the US Treasury Secretary and the Fed's own Benny Boy: "America is rolling again, no more worries folks, the recession talk was alllllll part of the show, we were joshin' ya'll, spend, spend, spend folks, we are a free society after all! Don't let the terrorists win, why if they see you keep those purse strings tight, they might get the idea that they are winning the war on terror, which they are certainly not, oh and to give you guys and gals a lil' extra incentive and to show you how much Uncle Sam cares about YOU, here's a $300-$600 check from your loving Uncle Sam *hands out 117 million checks* Now don't go and spend it on your rent or mortgage, where's the fun in that folks, this is a 'bonus' go ahead, buy that new 103" Plasma TV you've wanted since before the war :-D ... That's it, good job, do your American duty and keep our cash registers a ringin'!"

Did I rant? Yes, but this garbage makes me sick. I am not kidding you, last week nearly all of the financials articles I read were doom and gloom, mortgage crisis, March Consumer Confidence at 5 year low, US Manufacturing Index plummets, and the list goes on, and then all of a sudden, one good day on Wall Street, technically the 8th BEST day ever on Wall Street and "Happy Days Are Here Again."

Don't believe the hype, Wall Street is NOT in rebound mode, earnings week will spell problems and the mortgage crisis is far from bottoming, mark my words.

lucidstates

Ganesh,

I have, I guess, been a contrarian when it comes to economic trends or at least the popular opinion of those trends, marketing, politics, etc. for about 11 or 12 years now. I didn't used to be, I was a follow the herd kind of timid guy for most of my life, but when I started my education in economics, the stock market, business management and marketing, which was in the spring of 1997, I almost instantly became a contrarian, however, I didn't even learn that until a couple years later when I realized that nearly all of my stock picks, my view on the US economy, my business management style which was just beginning to show some form, and my ideas on marketing, that people told me first, that I was a contrarian, so then I decided to check into it and began a biographical study of some of the greatest business and stock market minds of the last 150 years and found that the majority of the billionaires since the mid 1800's have all been contrarian investors and overall contrarian thinkers.
It was then I realized that I actually was too, just a billion short of being a billionaire, hahahaha, as I still am today :-D ... Unfortunately, I have always had more of a willingness to learn and learn and learn, but not really apply many of those truths until many years later. I'm one of those guys who has head knowledge, but no street knowledge, meaning that I got it up here (my brain) but I have never really put much into action.
Just being honest on that front dude.

When it comes to trading stocks and options, I have actually been an active trader since late 2000. That is the area of my expertise and where I used to make a living, however, I realized rather quickly that I can supplement my income by trading stocks and options, but I cannnnot replace my income by doing so, at least not yet.
I say, the markets are a beast of a game man! You can do quite well if you can eliminate several things from yourself:
1. Fear!
2. Greed!
3. Pride!
4. Financial Dependence Upon the Performance of Your Portfolio!
5. Pride again!
Needless to say, I have not conquered any of these, however, Fear and Greed, the Lord has humbled me allot and I do not fear much at all when it comes to the markets and I no longer go for home runs, but just meter drop it, or hit singles and doubles if you will.
Pride always takes me down though, along with a reliance on the performance.
As long as I am not needing ANY of the trades to actually live on, then I do extremely well, otherwise, my mind is divided and I lose focus and that is when fear can come back. So yeah, it can be hard sometimes, but it is a game I absolutely love like no one knows, hehe, I get soooo much joy out of playing, when I win I am on Cloud #9, when I lose, I try to learn from it and keep that lesson going forward. When I do well, I can get prideful, and the Lord knocks me back a ways, to teach me a lesson!

You're right man, arguments are pretty much all we do, not many real debates occurring anymore. I believe that has a great deal to do with our relativistic society and a move away from God and right and wrong.
My brother and I are feverish debaters! We have always debated, and oftentimes fought :-D Our mom used to get onto us all the time for "arguing" and we responded with "we are debating" which she knew, however, she said she considers all debates arguments of one form or another, hehaha, so I don't know how to reconcile that, but I do love debating nevertheless and sometimes a good argument is necessary, if you are losing the debate, hahaha, kind of ;-P

I did find something funny in what you said, you mentioned that you are optimistic. I can tell that you are and I've discussed that with my brother, and he tends to be more optimistic then I, however, I feel that I am not pessimistic per se, but more of a realist, if that makes any sense. I know it can sound pessimistic and yes, I do have a pessimistic side, but overall, I think 85% of the time, I am simply being realistic and seeing, or trying to see, the facts at hand in the most realistic light with the most likely outcome at the forefront, regardless of whether it is a positive or negative outcome, though you are right, it does tend to be negative.
It is my belief that if an outcome is inevitable, why look for any reason to see it any other way?
Let's take oil prices. I believe that oil is going to go higher, the indicators are that it is going to go higher, my gasoline pump is going higher (I paid $3.74 / gallon as Shell this week), world politics are ever increasing in their intensity, markets are always filled with greedy traders, American's have always loved BIG cars and trucks, we also love a life of ease, we also love credit cards, and did I mention a life of ease, oh and credit, and ease, then a little more of both for good measure? :-P
Now you take the rest of the world, they like our money, or at least they used to like it, hahahaha, and they also know that American's are generally arrogant and wealthier then most people the world over, so they reason to themselves "we got 90% of the oil American's want, and they don't want anything else we have except for cheap labor, so let's milk it for all we got!"
And truthfully, I don't blame them! I mean, they are simply being ultra wise businessmen and American's are the dolts for not seeing this coming! If you have something someone else wants, and they have shown a willingness to pay 50% - 100% more each and every year since 2001 to have it, you'd be foolish not to charge them for it! And that is what OPEC is doing, very smart indeed and I give them a thumbs up for their courage to charge what it's really worth! Why sell under market value?
So with all that said, I believe that the realistic picture is pricier oil for now and the near future. After all, American's may complain, but in the end, they'll fork over whatever they have to, in order to get what they desire, in this case, it's oil.
So in that sense, though the subject may be a negative one, I feel I am not all together pessimistic necessarily, though I am somewhat, but mostly just realistic.

Thank you again for your remarks, I do love to read your comments/shouts, and I am also quite fond of discussing international politics, social issues, economics, religions and philosophy……

Talk to you later, and thanks for putting up with such aloooong shout :-P I will try to shorten them going forwards :-D

lucidstates

Ganesh,

I got a question, to maybe start up a debate with you about. If you want to that is, otherwise, ignore the question, hehe, so here it is:

Moral Relativism

My thing is, I don't know which country you live in, but here in the United States to be sure, and I assume around most, if not all, of the world, moral standards are becoming increasingly relative.
Meaning, that one person says to another that "what is not moral for you, may be okay for me", or that for example, a woman's "right to choose" is actually an utterly ridiculous statement unless you are to compare ones moral code to that just slightly above the animalistic instincts of a wild beast. I mean that to say that if a woman has a "right" to choose to murder an unwilling participant in a pregnancy "the child" that that child has NO right of it's own to live, because the "right" of the mother takes precedent because of a moral standard that is falling further and further.
So the question is a question of morals and people with a debased moral foundation, say "the mother has the right to stop the heartbeat of another human being because she is a person and since no one can put into concrete, at what point that child 'becomes' a person, then the 'right to choose' is automatically the woman's."
Or maybe this is not the correct way to argue this, let's take another one. Sexual freedom within a culture. A basic moral standing is that rape is wrong, correct? Okay, so if rape is wrong, what makes it wrong? Who wrote the rules that declare rape to be wrong? Who enforces those rules? Who holds the enforcers to a higher moral standard so as to impose such a rule?
If one person says that morality is relative, then where does that leave an issue such as rape? ... If one mans garbage is another's pot of tea, then who is to call the moral shots? And if someone IS to call the moral shots, who, how much, when, where, etc. becomes the next stumbling point for the society in question.
In my opinion, morals are not relative at all. Most issues in life have a moral foundation as to whether they are right or wrong. But we as a society have tried to eliminate right and wrong and call it a "disorder" so as to excuse our own misbehaving and not deal with the moral question at all.
With a society determined to make everything relative, how is this going to play out? ... It is my assumption that the only way it can play out will be total chaos. If no one has a moral foundation, and no one can enforce a moral standard based upon something concrete because society has turned it's back on anything declaring a moral standard in the name of personal freedom or personal rights, then what other possible outcome can be expected, but utter chaos and destruction of the society itself by its own citizens.

What's your take on the move towards everything being relative, particularly Moral Relativism?
I know this is a huge and broad topic that can be expounded upon pretty much endlessly, so I felt it a good one to start with, what do you think?

lucidstates

Dude, I found a guaranteed bet winner!!!

Question: "Will the next release of Apple's Mac OS X software be 10.5.3 or 10.6?"

It was announced today that Apple has sent out the pre-release test version to testers and is set to release the 10.5.3 in late April or in May.
I bet on this one already, but it is a sure thing, since Apple is testing it and about to release it :-D

lucidstates

Ganesh,

Thanks for the SHOUT man :-D These are great, I am sooo glad that hubdub added them :-)

My views radical huh? Hehe, that was funny to see you say, I didn't know, haha, I am not offended, I was just surprised, hehe, I hope that doesn't lower my credibility, if I have any left that is, hahahaha.
You know what Ganesh? It is most productive to have multiple views on nearly all things. I mean, your views balance mine out and I realize that like "hey, there is some light at the end of the tunnel." Cause if I am left just to myself, I get soooo caught up in negativity, that I get discouraged and totaly down about the state of affairs in America, so I totallllly need opinions like yours in order to keep some perspective on things. Otherwise I just down, down, down, yano? Hehe.
And something else, you are right too man! You called the current drop in Oil, I woulda said you were crazy before, but you were ABSOLUTELY CORRECT and you know your stuff man. It's great to have a debater.
I Love Debates, haha :-D My brother and I had an idea many years ago to set up local debate round tables. Like you'd invite businessmen, investors, citizens, politicians, anyone, and they could either listen to or actually sit at the large public table and debate the issues, business ideas, economic trends, anything.
They used to have debate round tables in Rome couple thousand years ago and I think they are still a great idea. But how we'd ever do this is beyond me, just an idea.

What other places on hubdub have you posted your opinions on? I would like to go see them.

lucidstates

I just posted a question on Oil for tomorrow.

http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_Light_Sweet_Crude_Oil_trade_below_10000__barrel_on_the_NYMEX_on_Friday_21st_of_March_2008_4645/view

Ganesh,

Dude you soooooo called it man! 3 days ago you said it would come down and you were DEAD ON!!! It has plunged over 10% since then, it was at a high of nearly $112 / barrel and today it dropped below $100! Today Thursday March 20th, it plunged to a two week low and hit an intraday low of $98.65 and closed at $101.84.

Gooooood job on the correct call!

lucidstates

Ganesh,

We can finally communicate. Is this cool or what man? I love hubdub, they make this site better every month man!
So how you been, what's up? ... Give me a shout sometime :-)

lucidstates