Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

I Am Pollyanna

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When I did this post yesterday about Zuck donating virtually his entire fortune to charity, I thought it would be a refreshing “feel good” post on what is normally kind of a grumpy, everything-is-awful kind of blog. I figured people would applaud Zuck’s generosity.

Boy, was I wrong! Almost everyone started playing Doubting Thomas and talking about how it was probably a tax dodge or something. Slopers tend to be a gentle bunch, so it didn’t get too nasty………..nothing like the comments from a similar post over on ZeroHedge; just look at these! (And take note of the upvotes):

1202-zuck1

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Waiting for Goldot Again

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In August of 2005 I wrote an article entitled Waiting for Goldot. It seems silly now but the mood of the time was one of frustration for many gold bugs as the S&P 500 was on a robo grind upward and gold was seemingly going nowhere. The theme of the article was to have patience, gold was just fine. Of course, that period was in the midst of a more traditional inflation, when gold and commodities out performed stocks. So any measure of patience then was a tiny thing compared to what is needed today.

The bear market in which gold resides today is a complex thing, with global inflation and deflation interacting and producing among other things, a Goldilocks environment in the US and rock solid confidence in the Bernanke and later Yellen Feds. Greenspan was continually derided as he allowed a dangerous commercial credit bubble to expand right along with stock prices and the economy.

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A Litany of Errors

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I suspect some of you saw the article over on ZH about the “trader” who had the misfortune of having his entire account short KBIO which ripped about 700% higher this morning. The guy blew out his entire account (and a lot more) and put up this page to ask for people to help him make his six-figure margin call (the margin call itself is three times bigger than the original account). As of this writing, he’s raised about 1.8% of what he owes Etrade.

Having read the text of his GoFundMe page (which is typically used for more worthy causes, such as helping out families or individuals with medical emergencies or charitable organizations that need assistance), I wanted to review the entirety of his missive, since I think there are some important lessons in here. I’ve cleaned up some of the more egregious misspellings and syntactical errors, since it bothers me to sully my blog with such things. Here we go:

Hello to all you traders out there. I’m starting this page out of the recommendation of other traders in the community.

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Mollycoddled

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I was a grumpy old man even as a child, so this post emanates from that legacy.

I’ve been puzzling over the peculiar reaction the market had on Monday to the savage attacks that took place in Paris. Never would I have dared imagine that assets across the board would excitedly zoom upward following this brutal mass killing in one of the most beloved cities in the world. It just made no sense.

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What’s Wrong with Class War?

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From time to time, I will hear someone on the news cautioning participants in a conversation that they are saying things in support of “class warfare.” Inevitably, that shuts the conversation even quicker than calling someone a racist (or trotting out some stomach-churning childishness like references to ‘the N word”) . Apparently any notion that doesn’t glorify socioeconomic stratification in our society is denigrated as “class warfare”, and all parties go scurrying for cover.

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