patrick.net

DeportLibtards says

How? Margin calls happen when a stock price rises when someone shorted that stock.

HeadSet says

How? Margin calls happen when a stock price rises when someone shorted that stock.

People borrow on margin. It's cheaper to borrow for stuff from your own stocks. Shorting is part of it for sure. But tax free dollars at 3-4% interest is cheaper than income tax. Plus stocks ultimately appreciate over the long term. You don't have to reinvest in stocks. Could be a boat, a car or a house, annual income, etc.

WookieMan says

But tax free dollars at 3-4%

Good to know, but rates are higher than you think:

HeadSet says

Good to know, but rates are higher than you think:

Most of the amounts on margin nowadays are the Hedge Funds. They probably pay about 5%. You're right about individual investors on margin, rates are too high for them.

Read the small print at the bottom. The Hedge funds borrow tens, hundreds of millions and some probably billions. Schwab doesn't really cater to them. For Schwab it's RIAs (they tend to be long only and no margin).

I just had a debate with a Chinese-American friend who moved to Singapore a few years ago for a good job.

He kept saying that a country like China which exports manufactured goods globally has an advantage of scale, and therefore lower per-unit costs, and I kept saying that American industry doesn't need to be global and we don't care about what it costs to produce something in China.

At one point he said that Americans get cheap TVs from China, and I said that's nice, but those TVs cost a lot of Americans their jobs, so they're really pretty expensive.

Patrick says

I just had a debate with a Chinese-American friend who moved to Singapore a few years ago for a good job.

He kept saying that a country like China which exports manufactured goods globally has an advantage of scale, and therefore lower per-unit costs, and I kept saying that American industry doesn't need to be global and we don't care about what it costs to produce something in China.

At one point he said that Americans get cheap TVs from China, and I said that's nice, but those TVs cost a lot of Americans their jobs, so they're really pretty expensive.

Yeah but at the end of the day it's a problem of American addiction to consumerism. We don't need 10 pairs of jeans, 2 or 3 are enough, yet most American womyn are addicted to clothes shopping and need 3 large closets just for themselves. Similar goes for electronics and toys. Kids have way to many (cheap) toys, you can throw 90% out easily.

mell says

Yeah but at the end of the day it's a problem of American addiction to consumerism. We don't need 10 pairs of jeans, 2 or 3 are enough, yet most American womyn are addicted to clothes shopping and need 3 large closets just for themselves. Similar goes for electronics and toys. Kids have way to many (cheap) toys, you can throw 90% out easily

A husband with balls fixes these issues. Liberals create hard times to live through.

If what Trump has started will continue, it's going to cause a lot of people who depend on promoting globohomo to lose their jobs.

There might be a few PatNetters who have heard of "The Tightwad Gazette" - it was a minor thing back in the 1990's.

Full disclosure - Her advice on nutrition and feeding your kids was bullshit. I hope her kids turned out OK despite her deliberate attempts to cut the nutrients they received to the bone. This was a thing born in the stagflation of the 1970's. When most of everything that counted was made in this country, there were plenty of handymen that would fix up old machinery and resell it for a profit. This worked because shit back then was made to last, and all you had to do was fix or remediate negligent maintenance and it would run just fine. Dick Feynman, of Manhattan Project and other famous endeavors, used to fix TV's and radios in his teens, because he figured out that when you turned on the devices, whatever tubes didn't light up were bad. He was also a highly skilled safecracker for his time.

A very good friend of mine, now that he is responsible for his own children, and is looking back on how is mother raised him, has ultimately condemned her as a toxic mother. He and his brother were nearly starved, kept in a room that essentially had no heat. He gained 6 inches in height once we became roommates in the college dorms, and I would cook rich, nutritious foods with lots of fat. I got pissed because he would always gobble down more than his share. He always kept up with me and stuff, I got him into music and live performance in bands - we rocked out with gigs that were so good the hairs on your arms would prickle, so we've known each other pretty much continuously for the past 35 years.

Nowadays, he's a director at a company, and he has showered me with favors, always telling me that when no one else was there for him I was, over a quarter of a century ago. I thought nothing of it at the time, but the words come to me now:

"When I was hungry you gave me to eat
When I was thirsty you gave me to drink,
Now enter to the home of my Father."

I think I'm an asshole, but it humbles me that I could have affected another person to that degree. I am blessed beyond what I deserve, but then again, it is not my place to judge my own worth.

I remember in the hippy dippy days in San Francisco, hippy parents were being arrested for killing their children through malnutrition with their vegan brown rice diets.

We had a neighbor who decided her dog should be vegan. Poor animal aged rapidly, lost all joy and bounce, and dragged ass until it shortly died. It was a Bichon, a typically energetic and sprightly breed.

Although my own childhood was rudderless, after hearing about the Satanic ritual abuse stuff and the consumption and torture of children for Satanism (even amongst the rich, many of whom have at least one child who 'died' aka human sacrifice), I can count my blessings.

Patrick says

He kept saying that a country like China which exports manufactured goods globally has an advantage of scale,

"Scale" my ass, it's the slave labor and zero pollution laws.

stereotomy says

I think I'm an asshole, but it humbles me that I could have affected another person to that degree. I am blessed beyond what I deserve, but then again, it is not my place to judge my own worth.

You were put where you were for a good purpose. Right on, Stereo. Keep carrying the Fire.

Re: Chinese manufacturing.
It might be hard to believe, but Chinese prisons have factories.
How can any county compete with slave labor?

clambo says

Re: Chinese manufacturing.
It might be hard to believe, but Chinese prisons have factories.
How can any county compete with slave labor?

The last time I heard somewhat reliable numbers - this was the mid 90's or early 'naughties - about 10% of all Chinese production was prison labor.

This is why when Chinese made shit breaks, I say to everyone in earshot "What do Chinese political prisoners know about making X?"

Holy shit! Just got me a new PatNet username!

MolotovCocktail

MolotovCocktail says

The latest. Be sure to watch the video.

It's offensive as hell. Shrillary Clinton Deplorable offensive.

..and what about the robots?

MolotovCocktail says

The latest. Be sure to watch the video.

It's offensive as hell. Shrillary Clinton Deplorable offensive.

..and what about the robots?

In Neoliberal land, you're either an upjumped overpaid paperpusher or a nobody. It's not just Academia & Government that needs a good DOGE'ing.

"Sorry Chuck, we just don't need you to be a $140k/year email standards quality assurance engineer"
"But what will you do without my Kaizen certified Six Sigma Black Belt... I have an English Degree from Reed and an MBA from U Phoenix!? Who will make sure people aren't double spacing after periods? You don't know how much stakeholder value I protect here!"

HeadSet says

WookieMan says
But tax free dollars at 3-4%

Good to know, but rates are higher than you think:

No. That's just a screen shot of a marketing piece. Rates are lower than that. It's a risk free loan as the lender/brokerage can sell the stocks automatically and lose nothing while collecting interest. Or Schwab is just a bunch of Jews.

Like I've said I should have just kept the margin loan of $125/mo on $85k for the house forever. Reinvest the difference what the normal mortgage would have been. It was against over $600k of stocks so a margin call was basically impossible or a nuclear war broke out. Margin is way cheaper than what you posted. Just depends on the stock value.

Also, even if it's 12% that's cheaper than capital gains or regular income taxes. It's not that high for the wealthy either way. How do you think Musk, Gates and Bezos pay themselves? Against their stocks.