[FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter

Steve Smith sasmyth at swcp.com
Thu Nov 17 12:06:55 EST 2022 

On 11/17/22 9:16 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> Tsk, so many bad investments, so little time!
>
> Binging Sandy Pentland led me to etoro.com <http://etoro.com>, where 
> everybody can see how everybody's portfolios are doing. The front page 
> gives the top crypto traders on the site, who are all around -70% for 
> the past year.  But scroll down and you find out that they range 
> from +27% to +197% for the past two years.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Wed, Nov 16, 2022 at 12:02 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> 
> wrote:
>
>     Having investments go bad makes me feel prosperous, like going to
>     the dentist.    I probably shouldn't have investments.
>
Thus my question a while back about leads/ideas around 
microlending/local-investment opportunities.

I would take up composting as Glen suggested, but the worms in my 
worm-bin would consider that a waste of perfectly good nutrition for 
themselves.   It turns out they *really* seem to prefer that I make 
vegetable stock from my scraps before I dump the (now cooked) bulk of 
those scraps into their world.  The resulting stock cuts down my 
aluminized-mylar-cardboard landfill-waste by a box or two a week.  They 
do like shredded currency as bedding material, but no more obviously 
than shredded newspaper, junk mail and printer paper.  I don't know how 
they feel about the holographic strips in >$50 notes, I don't "invest" 
anything larger than $5bills with them.   With enough roughage via 
kitchen-waste, they don't seem to need any added carbon anyway.

<virtue maundering>

    It is hard to think about Publicly Traded Securities as *investment*
    in anything (other than the greater glory/wealth of Billionaires?),
    much less Crypto which has no obvious mode other than *pure
    speculation* and utility even less than something as near-useless as
    gold (at least Platinum and Palladium have very acute utility in
    high-tech processes though that may be a liability?).

    If I have liquid assets I can afford to lose, why not *lose* them
    helping someone in my community try to do something requiring
    Capital which I think would actually improve the community?   I say
    *community* loosely...  it needn't be geographic, merely within a
    few degrees of separation wherein I have a chance of understanding
    the implications and consequences of my "investment".

    Money === Mouth?  Naturally, if I don't *know about* these
    opportunities, that is a hint in itself... I'm probably not paying
    attention closely enough, or there is a reason the "opportunities"
    seem to be otherwise?   If they tear down a 150 year old tiendita in
    the Pojoaque Valley (that has not operated for 50 of those) and
    build yet another Dollar $tore then it is probably for more "good
    reason" than the 5th generation family owning the tiendita property
    not having the capital to renovate and (re)stock with the items
    people need/want today.

    I "invested" a small amount in Mary's Nephew's Ukranian Refugee
    Charge last year, understanding it was a gift, not a loan.  She is
    finally able to travel freely to the US from Poland where she
    established herself in a refugee community/network and for the
    moment has decided she is better off there.  Her Grandmother who
    stayed in Ukraine died recently (natural not Russian causes) and
    this only reinforced her feeling of wanting to return to Ukraine
    when things settle more.   While I am not against US funding for the
    Ukraine's national defense, I am even more *for* supporting the
    likes of Vlada in navigating her personal journey through this
    time.   I suppose I could have put that cash into Crypto (or Tesla)
    and now be crying in my (spilled and souring) milk.

    Maybe I should "invest" in a replacement gold crown so that I don't
    have to chew funny on the right side?  Maybe I can find a dentist
    with a get-one-give-one program?  I am sure there are people in my
    community who could use more than one lump of gold fitted over a
    tooth nub?  Gold isn't useless really... I just said that for effect
    to tickle any GoldBugs in my vicinity.

    Maybe instead save up for a heart transplant when this one wears out
    (if it's good enough for Dick Cheney, it's good enough for me)?  Or
    invest a nickel into cloning or GMO pig organ transplant tech?   Or 
    a bigger flat-screen TV... I hear Black Friday deals are already queued!

</virtue maundering>


>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
>     Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 8:57 AM
>     To: friam at redfish.com
>     Subject: Re: [FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter
>
>     I know, right. My Ada's down from $200 to $100! I'm not quite sure
>     how I'm gonna pay the rent. /s
>
>     I saw some post on Mastodon that I can't find now. The person was
>     lamenting FTX and how they knew 2 people personally, one who lost
>     $90k and another who lost something like $10k. And he closed with
>     "neither of which could afford it." Maybe I'm cruel. But my first
>     thought was, why in hell did you have $90k in crypto if you
>     couldn't afford to lose it? I mean, I know there's a sucker born
>     every minute ... but $90k? I could live for at least a couple of
>     years on that. To even have 90k to invest *at all*, anywhere,
>     implies something.
>
>     On 11/16/22 08:44, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>     > Lol, well I guess I bought the right Proof of Stake crypto. 
>     (Not really, I got demolished too!)
>     >
>     > -----Original Message-----
>     > From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
>     > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 8:39 AM
>     > To: friam at redfish.com
>     > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter
>     >
>     > More Billionaire news [sigh]:
>     >
>     > What happened at Alameda Research
>     > https://milkyeggs.com/?p=175
>     >
>     > On 10/31/22 10:28, Steve Smith wrote:
>     >> Great quote from CDs screed:
>     >>
>     >>      "Every billionaire is a policy failure, but every
>     billionaire is also a factory for producing policy failures at scale."
>     >
>
>     -- 
>     ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
>     -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>     Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>     https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>     to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>     FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>     archives:  5/2017 thru present
>     https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>       1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>     -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
>     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>     Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
>     https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>     to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>     FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>     archives:  5/2017 thru present
>     https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>       1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>
>
> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoomhttps://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIChttp://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru presenthttps://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>    1/2003 thru 6/2021http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20221117/7630647c/attachment.html>

More information about the Friam mailing list