Month: January 2021
Risk of Broker Bankruptcy?
Robinhood had to take a billion dollar emergency loan to meet it’s requirements. We have seen Robinhood is a very shakily run brokerage with lots of downtime and was fined last month for illegal activity in how it handled client accounts. Interactive Brokers CEO pointed out that if one brokerage goes bankrupt, the other brokerages are obligated to pay off its debts.… read more “Risk of Broker Bankruptcy?”
Cautionary Note on Stock Mania
Cautionary note to my friends: As a longtime investor, I am seeing a lot of stock newbies getting sucked into a very overhyped markets and falling for scams. A lot of people right now online are doing a variety of pump and dump type schemes on a variety of stocks (Gamestop, AMC, Blackberry, etc). These people are persuasive, but they are hoping to con you into buying their shares.
Short Selling Is Not Immoral
Why are people saying that short selling is immoral? You buy a stock if you believe a stock is undervalued, you short it if you think it is overvalued. In either case, you believe in something and take a risk based on that. Short sellers help price discovery and often uncover frauds like Enron. Short sellers take more risk and lose money more often than buyers, and short selling itself is not immoral.… read more “Short Selling Is Not Immoral”
Why Robinhood Stopped Trading on GME
This will probably be my least popular post ever, but the explanation needs to get out there for why Robinhood stopped trading on GME.
Selling a stock short is NOT illegal. It is a perfectly valid type of investment according to the SEC:
“D. Are short sales legal?
Although the vast majority of short sales are legal, abusive short sale practices are illegal.… read more “Why Robinhood Stopped Trading on GME”
Toddler Climbing Toy Indoor – DIY Framed Lumber
I built a toddler climbing toy for indoor use. It is very simple and just made from 2×2 lumber and closet dowel rods I bought from Home Depot. I think the total cost of the materials was $50-100. I cut the lumber to size, then screwed together everything. The base is 8′ long, the back side is 4′ long, and the long side of the triangle is around 9.4′ I believe.… read more “Toddler Climbing Toy Indoor – DIY Framed Lumber”
Tractor Shed Failure
I bought a $200 canopy on Amazon that turned out to be not very sturdy and kept blowing across my yard. I built a wood frame with my buddy, and secured it with big rocks based on another Youtube video I had watched. Unfortunately, my plan did not go well as you can see. I have learned from this and hope to build a actual framed tractor shed to replace it.
Best Ways To Increase Real GDP Growth Rate
In order of impact… starting with the very best opportunities:
- Eliminate patents, software copyright, and any other copyright outside of a short, maybe five or ten year period of copyright for creative like books, movies, music. Patents destroy competition and GDP growth and affect almost every industry heavily, preventing better and less expensive versions of goods from being released.