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Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

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Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#291

Post by Dylan16807 »

the_other wrote: post #198
hgomersall wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The question is are you working for your money or are you hoping the money will provide free rent for you. If the latter, you're gambling. The only reason it's relatively risk free is because the system has been thoroughly stitched up in favour of the rent seekers.

> Not really. The question is are you working for your money or are you hoping the money will provide free rent for you. If the latter, you're gambling. So putting money in my savings account is gambling, but investing in businesses is not. I suspect I misunderstand your point completely.

They're saying that investing is your neighbor's business is gambling but starting your own business with the money isn't.

But if it's the same risk I don't see why.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#292

Post by danielmarkbruce »

wpietri wrote: post #281
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually somewhat easy... If you are creating financial exposure to an event with no underlying risk to it, and the point is exposure itself, you are gambling. In your snow example, those guys were gambling on snow for fun. The formal weather derivative - most weather derivatives have parties (usually players in the energy market, sometimes agriculture) who have real underlying risk and aren't entering those con…

That definition sounds plausible but breaks down in practice. Every Chicagoan has snowfall-related risk. And conversely, a lot of those guys legally traded where they were not exposed to risk. They were just gambling.

It doesn't break down. If you are creating risk for it's own sake, it's gambling. If you are doing something to hedge risk, it's not gambling.

If your position is unrelated to a risk or wildly above the magnitude, you are creating risk for it's own sake. Gambling.

The legality of it has zero to do with anything. You can gamble legally and illegally. You can gamble in markets which are made for hedging.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#293

Post by pants2 »

Hugsbox wrote: post #257
itintheory wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> toeing the line I'm not sure that phrase means what you intended to say here. From Wikipedia, [1]: "Toe the line" is an idiomatic expression meaning either to conform to a rule or standard, or to stand in formation along a line. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line It's possible I misinterpreted your statement though, and if so: apologies.

Guess I learned something new today. I've always thought "toe the line" means something closer to "staying as close as you can to the line without crossing it", if that makes sense.

Agreed, that's what I thought it meant when I used the phrase :)

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#294

Post by danielmarkbruce »

hgomersall wrote: post #146
vasco wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having "underlying risk" to something just means you invested in it before. So for you it's not a gambling as long as you... have gambled before in the other direction? Buy bunch of call options? Gambling. Buy a bunch of put options for stock I already hold, somehow honorable investing.

It's all gambling. You can dress it to as having a social purpose, but that's not why most people do it - they want the numbers to go up. The stock market is exactly the same - middle class gambling.

Buying small pieces of businesses isn't gambling. The fact the price moves around a lot isn't the point of it, it's just a result of people buying/selling. In gambling, the risk itself is the point.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#295

Post by danielmarkbruce »

Altern4tiveAcc wrote: post #213
Dylan16807 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can dress it to as having a social purpose, but that's not why most people do it - they want the numbers to go up. Too cynical. This disqualifies basically anything you can do with money. If you put it in a bank to get interest you are solidly into the not-gambling end of the scale. And I don't think an index fund is that much more to the gambling side.

> If you put it in a bank to get interest you are solidly into the not-gambling end of the scale Isn't that a bet that your government won't devalue your currency fast enough?

Inflation is a risk. A real, underlying, unavoidable risk. People with that risk aren't gambling.

You are conflating risk with gambling. You can go through life without gambling, you can't go through life without risk.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#296

Post by danielmarkbruce »

hgomersall wrote: post #165
Dylan16807 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by the ideas you're combining here. Do you think all forms of rent-seeking are gambling or just ones that involve money in a direct way? The only risk in a bank deposit is up at the "societal collapse" level. Are you really so extreme as to say that's gambling, and if so isn't having money at all a form of gambling?

The point is largely around expectation. Sure, the base case of putting money in a bank is very safe, but the interest on that is not. Factor in inflation and its pretty easy to get negative returns on bank deposits. If you fiddle with "investments" with the intent of making money without doing anything else, that's gambling. Sticking money in the bank with the hope that it's still there next time you come back to it…

That fact it's the default thing isn't the issue. Putting money in the bank is not gambling because you have the underlying risk no matter what. Just holding cash has risks. Any time you try to take some value today and turn it into value tomorrow, you have risks.

Gambling is creating risks for their own sake.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#297

Post by danielmarkbruce »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #218
Dylan16807 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Factor in inflation and its pretty easy to get negative returns on bank deposits. But that applies to having money at all. That can't be enough to call it gambling. > expectation, intent I understand your argument here, but I disagree. Shifting to the bank that offers the best rate is good management, not gambling. Understanding how interest works and being motivated by interest to do bog-standard money storage doe…

>But that applies to having money at all. That can't be enough to call it gambling. It is, because there's no choice not to gamble. You have to make choices, and none of those choices are risk-free. The options are on a scale between low-risk negative-return and high-risk high-return. But the risk is never zero - not even in FDIC insured accounts - and there's an element of randomness involved in the outcomes. That's…

All you are saying is "there is unavoidable risk in the world". Yes, there is.

Gambling is creating risks that don't need to be created, for their own sake. Some people like risk all by itself - gamblers.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#298

Post by danielmarkbruce »

hgomersall wrote: post #224
gloryjulio wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you fiddle with "investments" with the intent of making money without doing anything else, that's gambling. There are lot of value investors which sit at home do stock picking occasionally. They don't work for their money. I don't think they are gambling. The only investors that fits your non gambling definition seems to be the active investors who take part in the companies. But most investors don't

Why don't you think they are gambling?

Because they aren't creating risk. They already have risk - any time you have capital, you have risk it disappears.

You don't have risk that the lakers win tonight. You don't have to bet on the game.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#299

Post by brookst »

weatherlite wrote: post #262
brookst wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t any enforcement action “single out” a wrongdoer? People pulled over for speeding are singled out (there are other speeders), people busted insider trading are singled out (there are other inside traders), etc? I honestly don’t understand your position… it seems to be “unless you can simultaneously prosecute all wrongdoers in all industries all at once, prosecute nobody”. But that can’t be right?

> Doesn’t any enforcement action “single out” a wrongdoer? People pulled over for speeding are singled out (there are other speeders), If everyone is speeding and only you are getting a ticket than yes you're being singled out, that's generally not how the law is enforced. They're also using cameras since it's indeed hard to give tickets to 10 cars at once.

I think you believe there's an equal-outcome promise in the law that really just doesn't exist.

Not everyone gets caught. The deterrence is the likelihood of getting caught times the penalty. And yeah, the guy with a bright red, loud-exhaust sports car is more likely to be ticketed than grandma in a minivan, at the same speeds on the same roads. This is life.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#300

Post by watwut »

jbstack wrote: post #152
wpietri wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took decades to clearly define gambling enough to regulate it as we do now. Note that pinball was banned in major cities for decades because it was too similar to gambling devices. And even with those definitions things weren't very clear. I used to work for financial traders here in Chicago. Every year there would be an unofficial snow futures market. It was a fancy way for all the traders and clerks to gamble on…

> What made one gambling and the other not? What makes any given bet a legitimate financial trade versus pure gambling? Legally, it's whether the bet meets the legal definition of gambling as per the legislation applicable in your jurisdiction and any binding case law. There's no universal answer. But from an ordinary language perspective, the difference is whether it involves an element of skill sufficient (at least…

Poker is gambling and if you loose your money in poker, you lost them in gambling.

And betting on sports is ganbling too, despite the excuse of "skilled game" being deployed there too.

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