Human nature being what it is, and politicians being worse then most humans, the path of least resistance is to give something away instead of helping people to help themselves. The politicians get to brag about it and feel good about themselves and move on to the next big cause without making a single difference 98% of the time in the intermediate and long term; only the short term.
Until that mindset and the acceptance of such changes, we're going to keep paying more money in taxes and continuing to deteriorate instead of improve.
Bravo, Jeff! Here's a wild coincidence. JUST YESTERDAY, for the first time in years since I'd last thought about it, I recounted to a former CME member about the two times I'd received inside info. After reading your piece, I researched the date of the first instance, as I remember that as I was placing my order with a stockbroker, the news of Magic Johnson being an AIDS sufferer broke. (Nov. 7, 1991)
The story: A nameless CME member/close friend had a high flying customer who was either a MSFT board member or close to one. The West Coast guy told my friend that MSFT was going to release something (I'd barely heard of Microsoft) and the market would be surprised because the launch date had previously been delayed. I bought a whopping 3 call options for like a buck and a half each. I just looked at a chart before writing this and it appears the stock rallied a few percent from it's split adjusted $2 and then broke right back down. (I think at the time, it was a $35 stock) I remember eventually scratching the trade and haven't thought about it much since. But, I just figured out that had I exercised that 3 lot of let's say $10k in stock, I'd be up $2mil. I REALLY wish I hadn't thought of this story, and if you hadn't written this article, I wouldn't have done the math! I'm taking away the bravo I gave you, lol.
Human nature being what it is, and politicians being worse then most humans, the path of least resistance is to give something away instead of helping people to help themselves. The politicians get to brag about it and feel good about themselves and move on to the next big cause without making a single difference 98% of the time in the intermediate and long term; only the short term.
Until that mindset and the acceptance of such changes, we're going to keep paying more money in taxes and continuing to deteriorate instead of improve.
Bravo, Jeff! Here's a wild coincidence. JUST YESTERDAY, for the first time in years since I'd last thought about it, I recounted to a former CME member about the two times I'd received inside info. After reading your piece, I researched the date of the first instance, as I remember that as I was placing my order with a stockbroker, the news of Magic Johnson being an AIDS sufferer broke. (Nov. 7, 1991)
The story: A nameless CME member/close friend had a high flying customer who was either a MSFT board member or close to one. The West Coast guy told my friend that MSFT was going to release something (I'd barely heard of Microsoft) and the market would be surprised because the launch date had previously been delayed. I bought a whopping 3 call options for like a buck and a half each. I just looked at a chart before writing this and it appears the stock rallied a few percent from it's split adjusted $2 and then broke right back down. (I think at the time, it was a $35 stock) I remember eventually scratching the trade and haven't thought about it much since. But, I just figured out that had I exercised that 3 lot of let's say $10k in stock, I'd be up $2mil. I REALLY wish I hadn't thought of this story, and if you hadn't written this article, I wouldn't have done the math! I'm taking away the bravo I gave you, lol.
Epoch Times article is paywalled 🤨