Messages posted by: Panner

Why are we seeing bids at 58 for this contract? We've had a couple of very warm months (with March looking to be a third such month), but I gather these are due in large part to an El Nino event (which tends to result in net warmer temperatures during the winter) and which is scheduled to end in "early spring". What makes people think the rest of the year will be this warm as well? You need more than a few hot months in order to have a "warmest" year on record.

For the record, there used to be bids at 60-61, but I sold to those.

I don't know the current state of the bill, whether it is likely or not to pass. But my view is that there's something seriously wrong with both the bills and the backers to have this sort of indecisive result so many months later. That indicates to me that they may continue to be unable to get a significant health care bill out there before November where things will get worse for the democrats even if they do manage to keep their majority in both branches of Congress.

If I had betted on this a year ago, I'd have valued passage of the bill as very likely over the year. There has been a significant failure over the past year. Further, the situation doesn't seem at all improved (aside from the pressure of passing a bill prior to November). It appears to me that they are attempting to reconcile two huge bills with serious differences that barely passed and requiring huge bribes, particularly on the Senate side. So I don't see the political will present on the democrat side to pass this bill.

Nor do I see evidence that the health care reform strategy has improved in any substantial way. They're still trying to pass 2,000 plus page bills. They're trying to move glaciers here. Possible, but it's a lot of effort for a dubious result. Frankly, it doesn't make sense to me.

Did anyone have a chance to tune in to the health care summit? I didn't have time for much, just a quick glance. Seemed a bit pretentious on both sides, but I guess everyone was playing to the cameras.

Abacus wrote:

So, I'll ask the question one more time: John, can Intrade, or its employees, buy or sell contracts?

I don't see a conflict of interest in the current trading aside from it being a means to generate trading fees down the road. The thing to remember here is that it looks like trading because of the way the market is set up. Any trade that is truly riskless (that is, no matter the outcome, the trade cannot lose money) can become an automated dynamic of the market with no commitment of capital (aside from any effort needed to compute and execute the arbitrage).

Having said that, I did spend several hundred dollars in transaction fees on the last set of presidential nomination contracts as part of a bad gamble because I wasn't aware of the arbitrage trading (or whatever it is). Intrade should describe what it does here so that people can account for that in their strategies.

GAW838 wrote:

Delphi:

Maybe you're right about the no commission MM, but I still don't understand why anyone would ever sell at .1, especially on a contract that won't expire for over two years.

I think it's Intrade that's doing the trading probably via some form of arbitrage. They don't have to commit capital nor take a risk (the arbitrage part, of course). For example, if the sum of the bids for these candidates is over 100, then they can sell the entire field with zero capital commitment. I gather they don't do it much, but even a little will generate trading in all the contracts.

One of the larger problems with the Obama administration is the sloppy, noob way they seem to operate. For example, I've been following what's going on with NASA for the past few years. When Obama came in, he wriggled on the hook for almost six months before finally bowing to Senator Nelson of Florida and picking Nelson's favorite and a former astronaut, Charles Bolden for NASA administrator.

A bit over a week ago, Bolden announced a half-assed plan to drop Constellation and the Ares rockets (which was pretty good from my point view actually) and replace it with a number of vague things. There was no long term planning there (aside from a commitment to continue to run the International Space Station). Turns out that NASA didn't know until a couple of days before the announcement just how much money they would have this coming fiscal year. They usually have a couple of months to make those decisions.

Congress, being the people who write the checks, still need to approve it. And the makeshift nature of the NASA budget request is going to open it up to a number of Congressional attacks that a more professional presentation would have avoided. In other words, because they didn't get the numbers until a couple of days ahead of time, NASA may well have a huge budget fight in a Congress that is supposedly friendly to Obama.

My concern with some of these Republican candidates, especially Palin, is if they get elected, they'll have this sort of amateur hour, tail-chasing drama in their administration. Having said that, I voted for McCain because even with Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency, I had confidence that those two would be better for the US than Obama. And no offense to Democrats, but looking at the crazy stuff Palin has done versus the crazy stuff Obama has done, I still stand by that decision.

Romney has some serious baggage as well. The Mormon thing will divide the social conservatives and I doubt he can explain Massachusetts health care in a way that the fiscal conservatives and libertarians will respect.

Looking at the prices, John Thune is currently in third place. Who is this guy?

ChrisVanNiekerk wrote:

I think the Democratic strategy to pass HCR has now been settled. Basically, it is a two-stage approach. In the first stage, they will present the Republicans with a reconciled version of the House and Senate bills (probably cleansed of the most outrageous earmarks). They will ask the Republicans to add specific wishes and offer to remove specific elements from it, in the hope of attaining a (significant) majority for a new bill. If that strategy fails, they will pass the Senate bill in the House and fix it through reconciliation.

I like this approach. If obstructionist Republicans fail to contribute to the HCR effort, it won't leave the impression that the majority is simply overpowering the minority by means of strong-arm methods (i.e. reconciliation). At the same time, it reduces the Democratic fence-sitter's room for dissent. After all, they already voted for a HCR bill (with earmarks) and their calls for bipartisan efforts were headed (in vain) so they will have some difficulties explaining why they aren't willing to support a reconciled bill (without earmarks).

Thinking about it, it does play to Obama, if only because he seizes the initiative yet again. I think the whole "health care reform" effort is just a mess for Democrats and of dubious value. But if Obama starts playing smarter and keeps being the one who starts things, Democrats could pull out a win after all in 2010. It's worth noting that in the case of the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, they brought a rival agenda to the table.

Psychmenot wrote:

I don't see how the US could ever lose their AAA rating so long as they borrow in USD. all they need to do is print more USD and pay it back..

I see that as a way to lose the AAA rating. Printing money is effectively a subtle form of default, because you are devaluing the currency in which the bond pays out.

Further, since you're inflating your currency just to pay off a bond, there's always the chance that you have to stop inflating the currency for some reason (say because people stop using it for transactions or you can't borrow more money while you're actively inflating your currency). There's in my view an increased risk of normal default which would be reflected in the bond's rating.

One contract that I think might be worth looking at is EMANUAL.DEPART.EOT. There are several reasons to consider a resignation of Rahm Emanuel likely. Chiefs of Staff tend to have short terms. Emanuel is also at the center of the problems that the Obama administration has had with Congress. As I understand it, he's Obama's whip for Congress. Finally, more than anyone, Emanuel exemplifies the large government project mindset of the Obama administration.

If he manages to stay through the end of the first term, that would be an interesting event in the context of virtually everything related to the Obama administration.

Abacus wrote:

Thanks for the post, Panner. I hope you have been well. When Tradesports existed there was just one forum for everything. When the USG passed that stupid anti-internet gaming law I believe that's when they opened up another forum for the non-sports items. Probably since they knew they'd be selling the sports division. So, that explains why our membership dates don't go back to when we originally joined. I think I had about 1500 posts.

I don't have a problem with advocacy posts either. Anybody who doesn't want to read them can usually tell by the heading as to the contents.

Things are going ok. I'm job hunting at the moment as a somewhat overeducated software engineer. But the near future is provided for.

LongOdds wrote:

Abacus wrote:

I've been in the forums since 2004, Blaze, so perhaps it should be I asking you the questions. There are no official rules as to what they can be used for.

Regardless, what specifically did I advocate?

Abacus, I'm happy to talk with you, but stop with the "I was here first" crap. No one likes that. Chris and blaze are both prolific posters who have demonstrated they know what they're talking about. And if you've been in the forums since 2004, how come your register year is 2007? Lurking doesn't count.

I've been here since the forums opened (either 2003 or 2004, I don't remember) and Abacus has been here as long as he claimed. They restarted the forums in 2007, I think, though I wasn't keeping track of Intrade for several years.

My view is a bit cynical. Advocacy posting actually boosts activity on the forums (because everyone wants to argue against or for the blunderbuss in question) which in turn probably boosts trading activity.

Well, I made $4 weeks before the end of the contract. Guess that means I made money sooner on Cold Fusion than Kevmo did.

And please, let us ignore the researchers who actually got paid to research cold fusion. They clearly don't count.

LongOdds wrote:

I guess we'll have an idea about what's going on when he gives us his State of the Union address. Might be a good idea to go long on the healthcare contract before he gives it, as there will probably be a jump depending on what he says. Ultimately though, I have no idea if Dems have the political will to pass this now. Probably not.

That depends on what he says. And my view is that it's isn't political will that is the problem, but bad strategy. If they had broken the health care bill up into palatable pieces, a good portion of it would have been passed by the end of last summer. Maybe they couldn't pass everything, but at least the bribes would be cheaper.

LongOdds wrote:

a VERY modest reform bill with bigger majorities in the House and the Senate than Republicans have seen since 1923. The Democrats have spent NINE months and Obama has virtually exhausted all of his political capital on the healthcare bill. If they drop the ball now, while they are two yards away from touchdown, it will produce an enormously demoralizing effect with the base and show the independents that Democrats really can't govern.

These bills aren't "modest". The bloat in them is extraordinary, 2000 pages for each version. Second, the Democrats have demonstrated that they can't govern. They've been "two yards" from touchdown for NINE months and have turned what should have been easy plays into a massive gamble.

For now, it's worth observing that a Democratic Party that would abandon their central initiative this quickly isn't a Democratic Party that deserves to hold power. If they don't believe in the importance of their policies, why should anyone who's skeptical change their mind?

Ah, yes, the "We deserve to lose because we aren't ideologically pure enough!" argument. Problem is that they'll lose big in 2010 and 2012, if all they do is feed the base at the expense of everyone else. Ideological purity (that plus $5 buys you a Starbucks coffee, amirite?) isn't going to win you elections or get your agenda passed.

It's no skin off of Klein's teeth, if the Democrats lose in November. He can demand the Moon too for all that it matters. My view is that their best chance is with smaller, more focused bills. Pass the stuff that actually is popular and might actually lower medical costs. That way they satisfy that petulant base and still keep getting elected. From what I'm reading, it appears that a number of politicians are starting to support this angle (they probably would have earlier, if it weren't for the MA special election).

The current markets on the loss of votes in the House indicate to me that some Intraders expect the Democrats to do something that works well enough to keep their majority by November.

ChrisVanNiekerk wrote:

The EPA now has the power to regulate carbon emissions. There is a consensus across the political spectrum that legislation is preferable to EPA regulation. So Obama has a powerful tool in his armory.

For the moment. I understand that the EPA's move is being contested on the grounds that the EPA hasn't shown that carbon dioxide is a public health hazard and hence can be regulated by the EPA without express approval of Congress. The courts could rule in the EPA's favor, but I think that unlikely.