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He thinks that the farmers who lost hundreds of thousands in cash at MF Global have no business in the futures markets and deserve to lose their money if they were "speculating".

If he doesn't understand that those farmers were NOT speculating -- they were selling their in-the-ground and known production at a known fixed price for future delivery -- then he's dumber than a bag of hammers and deserves to starve when the farmers all go broke and he can't find any food in the grocery store.

It is in fact speculating to NOT use the futures markets!

How the **** does he think he can buy an airline ticket for $300 today to be used six months from now when the airline cannot guarantee the price of a gallon of jet fuel? Without the ability to lock prices like this commerce that requires a lead time of more than a few days or weeks becomes literally impossible.

That's why these markets have existed for literal centuries.

Tesla, read The Fourth Turning if you haven't already. At 83 your father would be a member of the G.I. generation who benefited the most from the post WWII economic boom. It's a generational thing where his became accustomed to ever inflating assets and perpetual wealth well into elder-hood. That's the world he has lived in and his reality is not likely to change unless a major crisis unfold very shortly, which it could.

Oh, and he obviously never farmed.

Pretty sure futures contracts (well, not in their current form, but similar principle) have been around for millenia, not centuries.

I'm pretty sure I recall hearing about what amounts to futures contracts on spices and stuff being transported from china to the middle east and europe thousands of years ago.

Tesla, I look at it this way: those living in a bubble of delusion are meant to live there.

I don't know why.

My religious ancestors would have said 'It's God's will' in response to the question.

Yeah, maybe. But they definitely date back centuries..... and quite possibly longer.

Pray that his relative awareness of these issues won't be an issue for him in his lifetime, Tesla. If it turns out he has to learn it first hand, that will be a difficult lesson.

@Tesla: Just go with it for now, be kind, and be thankful your dad is still around - make finance a taboo subject.

People believe mostly what they want to believe.

Motivating or convincing prosperous people on behalf of injustice being perpetrated on others rarely works. If the injustice hits him, then you'll have his attention.

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... when are WE ALL going to quit typing, bitchin', moaning, and peacefully, but with complete resolve, come together as a country and take ACTION to take back what's ours before its gone?

There's the question.

I read this forum everyday. I keep seeing regular posters who are convinced that the whole system is going to crash.

"Hitting the wall"
"Going off the cliff"
"Crash and Burn"
"Implode"
"Smoking Crater"

These are the terms I keep reading right here about what is going to happen to the entire financial and banking industry, and possibly .GOV, the political system, and society as a whole.

Predictions range from severe depression to Mad Max/Zombie Land.
From 30's style soup lines to "Wolverines"
From isolated communities to armed insurrection.
From sustenance lifestyle to roving mauraders.

But, the surprising thing that I continue to see on the forums is that those who have amassed some wealth, those who have some substantial net worth, those who have 5 and 6 figure balances in their bank accounts are still trying to figure out a way to utilize the system to hedge their balance sheet/net worth/investment portfolio.

"What's safe?"
"Where should I put my money?"
"What should I be in to come out as whole as possible on the other side?"
"What can't they take?"
What can't they touch?"

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm not as savvy about finance and the economy as most of the people on this board, but I believe what GEN has been saying for the couple of years that I have been reading on this board.

From what I've gathered:

"What's safe?" NOTHING
"Where should I put my money?" WHERE EVER YOU FEEL GOOD. IT'S A CRAP SHOOT
"What should I be in to come out as whole as possible on the other side?" SEE ABOVE
"What can't they take?" THEY CAN TAKE ANYTHING THEY WANT UNLESS IT IS IN YOUR HAND AND YOU PROTECT IT.
What can't they touch?" WHAT THEY DON'T HAVE
How do I protect myself?" BE READY TO BE AGILE, MOBILE, AND POSSIBLY HOSTILE.
What's left that's a straight game? NOTHING

I believe that there is a most serious day of reckoning coming to this country, and the world, and it is coming soon. I believe that we have to be responsible for ourselves, and that there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING that is beyond the people that are running things. They will do whatever it takes, whenever, to whomever it is necessary to stay in power.

If the money turns to scrap paper, they will be more than happy with the power, prestige, property, and privilege that they will have during any type of rebuilding phase. The same people who work for pay to protect them now, will work for food and shelter to protect them then.

Look at the elite and ruling classes of any of dozens or even hundreds of dictatorships or banana republics in history.

Do you think they worried that people were dying, their currency had tanked, and their markets were swirling in the toilet?
Or did they just sit back in their palace, drive their Rolls Royce through the streets looking at the peasants through the tinted glass, and go home and eat a good meal?

JMHO

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If he is 83 he really doesn't have much to worry about it. In addition to the farmers "speculating" at MF, they also lost CASH from the fraud, not "MAGIC EQUITY"

This was the final straw - stopped procrastinating and opened a checking account at a credit union with a good chuck of BAC funds. Will pull remainder of funds from BAC as soon as I can and hope the 90days goes by without issue.

I know, I should not have waited this long, but I'm done now.

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Or did they just sit back in their palace, drive their Rolls Royce through the streets looking at the peasants through the tinted glass, and go home and eat a good meal?

There are also plenty of examples where they lost everything they couldn't carry when they fled (Russian aristocrats c. 1918, German Jews c. 1936,Vietnamese aristocrats c. 1950's and again 1970's, Chinese mandarins c. 1935 and again 1949, Cuban exiles, c. 1959,...), were executed (French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Cuban revolution, Vietnam, Cambodia, China after revolutions, Nicaragua, Austria c. 1938...), and in a few instances, were actually cooked up and eaten (the most notorious of these were the native americans of Chaco Canyon).

By and large, the only places where the elite remained in place after destroying their economies were in S. America and Africa.

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There are also plenty of examples where they lost everything they couldn't carry when they fled (Russian aristocrats c. 1918, German Jews c. 1936,Vietnamese aristocrats c. 1950's and again 1970's, Chinese mandarins c. 1935 and again 1949, Cuban exiles, c. 1959,...), were executed (French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Cuban revolution, Vietnam, Cambodia, China after revolutions, Nicaragua, Austria c. 1938...), and in a few instances, were actually cooked up and eaten (the most notorious of these were the Mayans of Chaco Canyon).

Note how many of the examples you noted were revolutions.
We are not having a revolution.
That is over, already. We lost.

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Captainkidd, that evaluation can't yet be made.

Hard to argue with any of that, CaptainKidd.

Uhhh Captain , gaddafi went out with a knife up his ass....that didn't work out so.well. it won't here either .....

Good luck on convincing an octogenarian; they're set in the ways. I wouldn't be too dismayed; it's probably just a biological thing wherein their minds become stiff like their bodies. At least the few that I know really could care less what happens to them, so long as their kids are alright.

Personally, I find it hard to openly disagree with old folks; it just makes them bitter and angry. Better to just talk about the stuff you agree on - it makes them feel good and that's good for their health. And good for me, because I'd like to see them stick around for as long as possible.

Now, if you hate your family or you're talking about a politician, well I suppose you should lambast them on every false argument...

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Uhhh Captain , gaddafi went out with a knife up his ass....that didn't work out so.well. it won't here either .....

After how many years in the Rolls Royce??????

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when are WE ALL going to quit typing, bitchin', moaning, and peacefully, but with complete resolve, come together as a country

Never. Just try telling a Tea Partier that they have to abandon the anti-gay stuff and the religious stuff and work with OWS.

Or try explaining to a young conservative that he and OWS are on the same side.

Or try explaining to a young lefty that profits are good and profits on the side of small business are far more empowering for working people than a government program making promises of exponential payouts that it can never meet.

We're going to learn all about this, collectively, the hard way. Until things get bad enough that the PMSNBC and FAUX "News" viewers get smacked into reality. And maybe, not even then -- I'm sure many viewers will find some way to blame some arbitrary identifiable group for their troubles.

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He lives in bubble land and refuses to even consider anything outside of it. I'm the poorest person he knows, which is not very poor at all, and I just can't shatter his complacency.

Not to be too mean, but sounds like he's aiming to win a financial Darwin Award. Many of those highly-sought-after prizes were awarded here in California to people with similar head-in-sand views of the financial economy -- how housing prices were guaranteed to rise forever, and how shares of Viant, Pets.com and Excite@Home were a guaranteed path to prosperity.

Brian_cali, truer words were never spoken. I have tea-party friends, I have left leaning friends. I have sheeple friends and family. No one sees it, no one is willing to open their eyes. I'm frankly at the point where I just wash my hands of the entire thing, take care of my own and walk away.

Rural land in hand for plan A, Passports in hand for plan B. This country does indeed have the leadership it deserves. The people eat this **** up left AND right.

Tesla wrote..

How do you explain to your 83 yo father (and others like him) whose pension (from a private company) is very lavish and in no danger of disappearing due to the nature of that business, who has (even now, after downward revisions) valuable real estate, with more money in the bank/bonds than he'll ever use, what this is all about ?

He's set, as are all of his friends (until they aren't, of course), so trying to explain to him the state of the business and financial world and the fraud going on is just impossible. He lives in bubble land and refuses to even consider anything outside of it. I'm the poorest person he knows, which is not very poor at all, and I just can't shatter his complacency. He thinks that the farmers who lost hundreds of thousands in cash at MF Global have no business in the futures markets and deserve to lose their money if they were "speculating". He won't listen when I explain why futures contracts have been around for centuries and help actual productive people in the economy.

An old maxim comes to mind: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

The only thing you can do (and is entirely under your control and discretion) is to increase your preps for another mouth to feed. When the Final Collapse occurs people like your father will be in a stupor for days, if not weeks, and you'll literally have to take them by the hand to your bugout location.