the_drunkard

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I actually think about this paradox relative to the uptick in crime in major cities.

Take SF for example where crime has seemingly spiked and there's no willingness to enforce the law /prosecute offenders.

On one hand, a version of Hammurabi's Code (to cut off the hand of thieves) is probably inappropriate. On the other, we've created an environment where there's no repercussion for breaking the law.

Personally, I find myself favoring Hammurabi's approach.

I don't believe his code specifically addressed petty theft; allow me to paint with broad strokes.

> You do not extend tolerance to those who would deny your humanity.

Probably a bad ethos to harbour, one that I imagine quickly rationalizes violent behavior.

And I think we're all fortunate that in the US there is no prevailing force denying any specific race of their humanity. Is there scar tissue from the past? Certainly.

As Snowden states "freedom is a direction" and we've certainly moved in the right direction over the past 30 years.

> Racism in the US is just fascism that hasn't hit white people yet.

Odd foreshadowing, but let's hope that true fascism never metastasizes in the US.

I am curious as to who you believe is currently denying your /others humanity in the US?

> Take some risk profile and then bet that low cost automatically balancing stock/bond Vanguard fund beats 90% of hedge funds over 10 years based on risk adjusted return.

That would be a closer "apples to apples" comparison vs. Buffett's bet.

Please read the article. It's explained clearly under Protege Partners, LLC's Argument.

> Mr. Buffett is correct in his assertion that, on average, active management in a narrowly defined universe like the S&P; 500 is destined to underperform market indexes. That is a well-established fact in the context of traditional long-only investment management. But applying the same argument to hedge funds is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison.

> Having the flexibility to invest both long and short, hedge funds do not set out to beat the market. Rather, they seek to generate positive returns over time regardless of the market environment. They think very differently than do traditional “relative-return” investors, whose primary goal is to beat the market, even when that only means losing less than the market when it falls. For hedge funds, success can mean outperforming the market in lean times, while underperforming in the best of times. Through a cycle, nevertheless, top hedge fund managers have surpassed market returns net of all fees, while assuming less risk as well. We believe such results will continue.

> So is your argument that we just haven’t been through a cycle or else the hedge funds would have come out ahead? If they didn’t come out ahead after all of the turmoil, they are (on average) worse than an index fund.

No. The proposition of most platform hedge funds is not to beat the market. It's to generate returns in any type of environment on a risk neutral basis.

So if you invest in a hedge fund, do not expect market returns. Expect range-bound returns in any type of market environment.

Hedge funds are risk management vehicles for institutional money.

> The fact that hedge fund managers live from the fees tells what they really think about their skills. Never gamble using your own money.

Most hedge funds don't gamble, but some do have poor risk management (e.g. Melvin Capital).

The proposition of a hedge fund is actually very compelling to institutional money: range-bound returns in any type of market environment. This proposition bodes very well for say major pension funds that want to avoid market risk while also modeling out return + pension liabilities at an assumed rate of return.

This bet is disengeneous as *most hedge funds operate under risk neutral long /short strategies that seek to generate returns irrespective of market conditions.

Want to know what a good year for a PM at a major platform hedge fund (P72, BAM, Millenium, etc... ) looks like? Probably in the range of 8 -12% returns, which translates to 7-figure pay days.

A more in depth explanation below from the article is linked below.

> Having the flexibility to invest both long and short, hedge funds do not set out to beat the market. Rather, they seek to generate positive returns over time regardless of the market environment. They think very differently than do traditional “relative-return” investors, whose primary goal is to beat the market, even when that only means losing less than the market when it falls. For hedge funds, success can mean outperforming the market in lean times, while underperforming in the best of times. Through a cycle, nevertheless, top hedge fund managers have surpassed market returns net of all fees, while assuming less risk as well. We believe such results will continue.

Enron and Valeant are two of the most significant examples of corporate malfeasance over the past 20 years; McKinsey or its partners were directly involved in both.

That's not cherry-picking.

The most concerning part about this is the following excerpt which highlights how Twitter is working at behest of the government in India:

> Earlier, government sources said the IT Ministry had asked Twitter to suspend these and several other accounts. Sources said the request came from the Home Ministry and law enforcement agencies, and was made to prevent "escalation of law and order (situation) in view of the ongoing farmer agitation".

> Virtually all trading platforms have blocked users from opening positions on these symbols.

Can you be more specific? Robinhood & Webull are the only two that I'm aware of.

That tactic worked out well during the French Revolution...