omfg!!! YouTube like totally stabbed there own eyes out over this kid's video! it's just like that Edipus guy we lerned about in class 2day! I didnt think it was tru until Jon was all like "I red it on MSNBC!!"

(The story itself is quite hilarious, check here (their tag line is awesome).)

... and yes, those are nested parentheses, lol. Just like calc!

On an unrelated note, buying a new ball does wonders for your game (bowling, sicko). I went from bowling ~165/game to a 211, 233, 156 series. Well, actually the bowling is partially related (second cousin, thrice removed) to the above story: the weightlifting I did over the weekend caused me to tense up the final game and ruin my 600-series.

However, unlike unlucky Aleksey, I'll be back in top form next week :oP

Now for something totally different.

I subscribe to the philosophy of random acts of violence. Wherever Fortune senior writer Nelson D. Schwartz currently is, I sincerely hope he feels a tremor as I utterly demolished his half-assed article. Nelly, baby, this is for you!

No, I don't trust you, Fortune. Why? Well, for starters, you leave convenient gaps in your "explanation" - one which also contains unwarranted leaps of logic. In brief:

1) "...according to one Gallup poll, a lot of Wall Streeters wish they'd been in on the plot.

So what really drove prices down..."

Arguing from a hypothetical (brokers could've made money if they'd known!) anecdote is not justification (even though Fortune is not explicitly justifying, their syntax is such that it is dismissive of any real consideration for anything but the notion that conspiracy is silly). So if the government conspired to drop gas prices, it had to be to the benefit of brokers? Small fries in terms of political power for one, and for two - for any conspiracy to be believable, it can't be airtight. Brokers made money, Republicans elected, public duped, corporations keep from leaking info - it's too much. You can influence what you can influence, and although I'm certain nothing concrete was ever discussed, it doesn't need to have been when the energy sector time and again pours money into the elephant's coffers. Of course, since the current administration is keen on holding closed-door energy sessions, for all we know it could have been an explicit request from one old oil crony to another >wink< >nudge<.

2) Hurricane ... or not to cane.

Preying on the ignorance of the masses. If you truly take seriously the following supposition, that brokers en masse and against all common sense believed in a repeat of the 2005 hurricane season (which is given twice the article space as the other two reasons), then you are just the type to read MSNBC as an authoritative news source. You and I may be stupid enough to invest on such whims (and I've actually done quite well for myself investing on whims so far, lol), but a brokerage deals with these pesky things called probabilities. Yes, once a trend gets started its difficult to stop (as the article does mention), but to essentially lay the bulk of the blame on a dark horse instead of sound economics is yet another ploy to lull people into thinking the world really is a lot simpler (and a lot less subtle in its manipulations) than it really is. It's like a bad sitcom. "Oh, honey, the silly brokers across from me at work today were so trigger-happy they invested in gas because I farted. Guess your chili is really bringing home the bacon after all! Ha ha!"

Seriously, everyone, take a step back and think of how you behave at a basic level. Say you have a friend, Sally, who like roses. You know she likes roses because she has a rose for an icon on AIM, she sends e-mails with rose patterns, and you've seen her get excited about receiving roses in the past. Does she need to specifically e-mail or IM you to tell you that she would like roses on her birthday? If she does, then by god you really are that stupid, but my guess is that no matter how well you know probability you could surmise that roses would, at the very least, not be a bad option.

I'm a giant multinational oil conglomerate with interests around the world, but I'm based in the U.S. due to historical reasons and, because the PR fallout would be too bad, I cannot overtly relocate to a lower-tax environment (but you can bet your ass what assets I can put there are in tax-free offshore accounts). Now, I know Americans are largely sheep with ADD. I'm pulling in so much profit I can't buy jets for executives quickly enough to spend it all before the market turns down again. All this cash, where to invest. Well, I already contribute to Republican campaigns because they're oh-so-kind to me come tax season. What if instead of an outright contribution that would get a lot of negative press we just ease our prices a little? People broadly associate Republicans with energy, so lower energy prices would be an issue most probably positively associated with Republicans. The money we lose in profits, which we already have so much of we're lighting $1000 cigars in the mouths of $1000/hour hookers with $100 bills, is just like the money we set aside to contribute. Also, if we time it juust right, we can a) do it long enough beforehand to make it look like it was purely market forces and we had nothing to do with it and b) ensure there is enough time between the drop in prices and the election so that people remember the decline but don't stop to consider its convenient timing.

Now, the above has a lot of conditionals in it, but it's all predicated on a simple thing: recognizing a trend and hedging your bets on a likely outcome. I've heard in more than one source that "easing tensions around the world" have contributed to lower prices. LOL. Not only are there the same amount of reports coming from Iraq, more from Afghanistan, and renewed violence with Palestine, but NORTH KOREA NOW CLAIMS TO HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Are you fucking kidding me? Is it really easier to swallow the media's enormous pile of bullshit than to believe that there may possibly be collusion between the oil-drenched members of this administration (and it's "no-holds-barred" sleazeball architect, Karl Rove) and the energy sector in the United States? Anywhere else in the world you would get a reasoned debate considering both sides of the issue, but in the good ol' U.S. it's "aw, shucks, whoduvthunkit?" Or, even if it were ever exposed, would people change their view so that the default would be that the corporation should be assumed to be a giant, guilty ball of sleaze (ahem - Enron, WorldCom, stock back-dating, HP, etc.) as a basic premise on which all debate is predicated?

3) Innumeracy + smoke and mirrors = THE FLEECING OF AMERICA (redux)

"The switch in Goldman's basket of commodities had been previously announced by the firm, but that didn't stop the conspiracy theorists. "Hmm, what a coincidence, luring Goldman's top dog to take a HUGE pay cut by becoming Treasury's top dog, and then Goldman Sachs makes this unexpected decision, serving to dramatically drive down gas prices," said the Grey Matter, a liberal blog. But the grassy-knoll crowd didn't bother to crunch the numbers."

Okay, I hope you see where I'm going with this one. "The switch ... was previously announced ..." - would it really have killed the article to state when? No, but it may have provided more fodder for conspiracy if you knew it was March instead of August, for instance. [I will try to find out]. Why does the date matter? If it was early in the year, then it would've already had time to pan out in the marketplace well ahead of the decrease in gas (late summer). If it was announced in, say, July, then Fortune's argument is more valid.

"But the grassy-knoll crowd didn't bother to crunch the numbers."

The following explanation about long and short positions is irrelevant for two reasons. Most importantly, it still assumes that for the conspiracy idea to have validity the brokers must somehow profit. Look, these companies (energy sector) dump millions into campaigns every year. If their partners at some brokerage make a 3.9% return on their investment instead of 4.2%, in exchange for another two solid years in which to lobby friendly Republicans into screwing you and me a little harder, that's a sound fucking investment. There is no practical upper limit on the value of political capital of that magnitude (Republican trifuckta of Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch).

Furthermore, the article again plays on the layperson's ignorance. There is no "number crunching" required for collusions of the nature conspiracy theorists are describing. The issue is itself collusion, which is often done person-to-person and not in Excel spreadsheets. Also, the numbers are irrelevant for a third reason - the guy who stood to benefit from this (Goldman's top dog) had left the industry. Who cares if the people he left behind get slightly screwed? Also, why would someone in a brokerage take a government job for less pay? Have you ever heard of anyone getting into investment banking for altruistic motives? "I'm only going to make money for good capitalists!" It's not law, people don't begin with unattainable ideals of righting the system. Investment bankers get into it for one reason and one reason only - they love the high of making fast-paced deals and getting exoirbant compensation. They don't get into the system with grandiose ideas of changing it, they get into it with grandiose ideas of what it can do for them as individual and, hopefully, absurdly wealthy capitalists. Again, there is no need for crunching any numbers, this is a human attribute for reasoning known simply as "common fucking sense".

4) Discrepancy

Now, I'm not arguing that this guy should not have made money, but consider:

"[Barrowcliffe] has managed to eke out an 8 percent gain for the year by avoiding bets on which way crude would go, instead playing off the spreads between different products, betting on how, say, heating oil would move if gasoline prices went down." (emphasis added)

Okay, he (Barrowcliffe) then goes on to say how he wasn't "tipped off", which is again relying on the absolutely idiotic notion that for the conspiracy theorists to have a case (not a true one, just one which merits further discussion) the brokers had to benefit. If you can believe that one businessman would willingly screw another (or a whole host of others, including some of his buddies, but a whole lot of his competitors and enemies), then you have just refuted Fortune's argument in this article in its entireity. That's pathetic journalism and even more pathetic that most people aren't even going to give more than a cursory glance at the headline and sub-headline (which, gee, make a pretty convincing case in lieu of the lack of logic underpinning the article).

Now the discrepency is this: Fortune insinuates that heating oil is being pegged by investors as a steady investment, as below,

"Right now, the latest bet by traders is for a normal winter - if there's a sudden cold snap before Thanksgiving, expect a bump in crude."

Now, given the nature of the markets, it's best to pad any type of forecasts with a lot of ... well, there are technical terms for it, but it's all bullshit. Phrases like "right now", "latest bet", etc. serve as a safety net if Fortune wants to go back and say "we didn't predict anything, we just reported where people thought the market would move." Fair enough. But if you want to accept Fortune's authority on the lack of any conspiracy theory, as well as the subversive way in which they insult your intelligence, follow the second link below the article: Big drop seen in winter heating bills. Fortune just sorta kinda told you something in a tiny blurb about the market, to justify its case against a conspiracy, yet it then writes an extensive article for the opposite view.

5) It's the fina-al insu-ult!

"Ironically, the current price for crude - $59 a barrel - is roughly where oil insiders have been predicting it would be if it weren't for all that hot money flowing into commodities."

This one almost seems like it could be completely true, no bullshit (except for the abuse of the word "irony"), but again your feeble intellect is being demolished by a logical fallacy (in this case, arguing from the antecedent clause). To put it simply, it hinges on your understanding of a simple vocab word: therefore. Logically, "If A, then B. A, therefore B."

What that means can be illustrated in countless examples. Say I am hungry (pre-existing condition, but necessary for purposes of illustration). I tell you "If you have an apple, I will eat it." You pull an apple from your pocket, and I eat it. If A (if you have an apple), then B (I will eat it). A (you have an apple). Therefore B (I eat it). Simple, eh? (not 'A', lol).

Now, arguing from the antecedent is a fallacy as follows. "If A, then B. B, therefore A." You have to understand that just because B depends on A, A is NOT the only thing that can cause B. If B happens, it does not have to have any bearing on A. It can, but does not have to.

Same example, except reverse the order. Instead of saying "If you have an apple, I will eat it." I say nothing to you (there is no A yet). We are both standing next to each other in silence, and you pull out an apple (condition B, possession of apple satisfied). Am I going to eat it? I haven't said anything, therefore I'm not bound to A. Maybe I am am hungry and have thought of eating it, but if I have yet to specify condition A, then there is no way that your action is directly tied to condition A.

So, going back to this example, Fortune is using this type of logical fallacy to make their argument. To refresh your memory, Fortune is saying that because some "oil insiders" thought the price should be where it is today, that nullifies any conspiracy theory. Not a bad supposition on the surface, except that Fortune (the sticklers about crunching numbers, remember?) doesn't offer any indication as to how many of these "insiders" are being referenced. Is it even a majority? I would bet not, considering that for every report I read about oil "peaking" I could find another that was going ga-ga over the prospect of $100/barrel oil prices [will reference this, because of course you ADD sheep forget things within a week of their published date].

So, Fortune is playing the stupid game of "Well, there were some people who said that condition B would occur, and now it has! This, like, totally proves our point!". If you're digging back through past data looking for support, chances are you will find someone, somewhere who "forecast" today's situation (hence why some people get lucky, like Barrowcliffe, and others lose a fortune, even though they are participating in the same market). Different forecasts, different investment choices, different outcomes. If you go back, then it's child's play to find support for *any* investment choice. Look also at what Fortune did with how it worded the stuff about the heating gas markets - it has readily available quotes to show that no matter which way the market goes, up or down, they were able to "predict" where the market would go.

This is why real, good traders aren't reading the freebie bullshit that gets passed off as news and/or critical analysis to all of you.

BAA! BA - wait, I forgot where I was going with that ... oh, Madonna adopted a negro child! Mobilize the national guard, the hard-working Africans are going to steal the Latino's jobs!

(On a side note, this move towards the "second-generation web/internet", exemplified by streaming media, is going to make it harder and harder to specify, much less locate precisely, sources of news. I had to search extensively to actually find a link to the video and not a list of videos which you had to then search to find this particular piece. Luckily, and this is where being a pack-rat comes in handy, I have my own archived copy, but I believe it's too large to host directly on the blog and I don't have anywhere else to put it right now.)