Apparently happening now in UK

[kaz3g]

This is a good point. Protecting your industry is everything in these times when protecting the future freedoms to fly for recreation are secondary to what's coming in the economic world. People who have been thrown out of work are not going to be too enthusiastic about someone persuing a hobby or sport.

I think you just need to take a quick look at FR to see the surprisingly large number of GA aircraft in the air. I can’t see why the large flying schools with overseas students can fly around with impunity when all the rest of us is grounded for fear of offending the law or neighbours or anyone else.

 

perhaps RAAus will support the push from AOPA to allow single pilot ops, at least for reasonable maintenance purposes.

[Old Koreelah]

...At the other end of the scale you have the aforementioned hedge funds and other financial industries who do not produce anything of value, they just manipulate financial systems. For them it's a zero-sum game and every dollar that they make comes at a loss to someone else in the market.

...and that is the sector which got us into the debt mess we're in.

They are the ones who got bailed out by public money last time they stuffed the economy.

Parasites.

[turboplanner]

I think you just need to take a quick look at FR to see the surprisingly large number of GA aircraft in the air. I can’t see why the large flying schools with overseas students can fly around with impunity when all the rest of us is grounded for fear of offending the law or neighbours or anyone else.

perhaps RAAus will support the push from AOPA to allow single pilot ops, at least for reasonable maintenance purposes.

A lot of the GA are commercial and RFDS so legal, but yes there's one school blatantly breaching the Health requirements including social distancing.

RAA are in the same position as CASA; the Chief Health Officer sits above them under the State of Emergency.

AOPA can make noises, but the decisions were medical ones and the Chief Health Officers make the decisions.

There is talk today about winding back, perhaps to Stage 2 in about 3 to 4 weeks if certain health criteria continue to improve.

[turboplanner]

...and that is the sector which got us into the debt mess we're in.

They are the ones who got bailed out by public money last time they stuffed the economy.

Parasites.

MANY industries would crash regularly without the stability those finds offer.

Where farmers used to fall into poverty if a bad season hit after they'd sown their crops, or a virus killed their cattle, they're protected these days by hedging.

[Old Koreelah]

It has been said before that the big money that a person with big money spends is the money that ultimately pays the factory worker's wage. We tend to focus on the extravagance of the wealthy and forget that what they pay for extravagance flows down to the widow's mite.

[Old Koreelah]

MANY industries would crash regularly without the stability those finds offer.

Where farmers used to fall into poverty if a bad season hit after they'd sown their crops, or a virus killed their cattle, they're protected these days by hedging.

I'm sure those investors only risk their money for the good of the struggling farmers...

 

I grew up in a rural environment where cooperatives and marketing boards gave stability to the farmer.

Where have they gone?

[kgwilson]

Some of the members became capitalists and contrived to get rid of the co-ops & boards creating their own businesses to do what the co-ops & marketing boards used to, conned other members by low initial fees & once the critical mass had been obtained increased the fees and became wealthy. Part of the reason the rich are now richer & the less so, the new poor.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Hedge funds and hedging are two very different things...

 

An agribusiness will hedge using, for example, futures, to lock prices in, or swaps to normalise interest or fx rates.. these are NOT offered by hedge funds. Futures are usually standard contracts offered by traders managed through exhcanges. and your coops/marketing boards would be actively trading in these. I was talking to a commodities trader a while ago, and he mentioned a lot of the larger farmers are more wiley than the traders these days when it comes to futures. There may be off-exchange futures, called forwards and these are rarely traded and can only be done OTC (Over the Counter).

 

Other hedging is usually through some form of interest rate or FX swaps and various incarnations of these. These are normally offered by commercial or investment banks - rarely directly by hedge funds.

 

Hedge funds originated by playing bets against something - or short-selling it. For example, if they thought a stock or commodity was going to tank in price, they would borrow it (for a price) from an existing holder - sell it on the markets, which provides excess supply therefore reducing the price - and then when the price loses enough, they buy it back at the reduced price and return it to the entity they borrowed from. While they have branched into more sophisticated techniques and they bet both ways, they are purely betting houses - calculating the odds and when the odds stack up, taking a punt. The only value they create is for their investors. Often, they destroy value as they are positively acting to do it.

 

THere are other hedging instruments as well - for example credit default swaps, etc. But they operate the same way.

 

CLOs and CDOs are not hedging instruments - but are investment instruments of a form of an asset backed security and these were a problem.

 

Having said that, I would be surprised if hedge funds would have been bailed out... hedging desks - also known as counterparty exposure management desks - may have been the cause of some of the losses of your traditional banks which were bailed out, or they stupidly held CLOs and CDOs and other asset backed securities as part of what were the rules allowing Tier 12 capital.

[Marty_d]

It has been said before that the big money that a person with big money spends is the money that ultimately pays the factory worker's wage. We tend to focus on the extravagance of the wealthy and forget that what they pay for extravagance flows down to the widow's mite.

That only works if the person earning obscene amounts actually puts it all back into the economy.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Agreed, Marty. I was travelling in a London cab and the cabbie remarked how he liked the fact the bankers got bonuses as they spent it and it was a shot in the arm for the economy. I mentioned for the bars, strip clubs, cabs and local drug dealers - yes, but what else? WHen they buy their Porsche or Ferrari, or their second home in Provence, where does the money go? It did get him thinking.

 

I worked for the investment banking arm of a bailed out bank in the UK. I was shocked at the genuine despair the bankers, some of whom made many millions of pounds over the years through their bonuses, were worried where the next (huge) mortgage payment was going to come from once their redundancy money ran out. Seems the Champagne houses and wineries in France made more than their fair share out of those bonuses.

[onetrack]

I've driven a roller for quite a while. The problem was, it was a Pacific-Ace road roller. And I only got $34 a week for driving it.

[turboplanner]

I'm sure those investors only risk their money for the good of the struggling farmers...

 

I grew up in a rural environment where cooperatives and marketing boards gave stability to the farmer.

Where have they gone?

Mostly broke, because they stopped at just pooling the resources of their local district, and didn't have enough buying power or selling power.

By the late 1980s most of them had gone belly up due to harsh marketing conditions or the natural disasters I mentioned earlier, quite often ripping the heart out of the local town which quite often had 50 milk tanker drivers etc.

 

These days producers have the support of trillions of dollars if they need it and the farming scales are much bigger.

[Yenn]

I was into hedgeing years ago. Not the type you are thinking about, but what Prince Charles has got in to as part of his agricultural estate running.

I was getting 25 shillings a week for it and it was in my opinion a worth while job. Of course in those days I was a country yokel, in fact I still am.

[old man emu]

[ATTACH alt=image.jpeg]52519[/ATTACH]

 

 

Please don't poke fun at my economic naivety

[Jerry_Atrick]

I was into hedgeing years ago. Not the type you are thinking about, but what Prince Charles has got in to as part of his agricultural estate running.

I was getting 25 shillings a week for it and it was in my opinion a worth while job. Of course in those days I was a country yokel, in fact I still am.

Once a yokel, never a grockle!

[Old Koreelah]

... I was shocked at the genuine despair the bankers, some of whom made many millions of pounds over the years through their bonuses, were worried where the next (huge) mortgage payment was going to come from once their redundancy money ran out...

Seems to be a universal human failing. I've seen so much extravagant spending by cashed-up miners who go into shock when the good times end.

[jackc]

Seems to be a universal human failing. I've seen so much extravagant spending by cashed-up miners who go into shock when the good times end.

 

The time to pick up a cheap Harley Davidson:-)

[facthunter]

Great theory. The extra POWER they wield is the greater issue.ie get a worker to cop the penalty points for HIS or the wife's driving ORhelp the local pollie for a few favours

[M61A1]

Seems to be a universal human failing. I've seen so much extravagant spending by cashed-up miners who go into shock when the good times end.

You should read a book titled “ Boganomics “. I takes a look at “ Cashed Up Bogans” or CUBs and the marketing involved in a rather tongue in cheek way.

[kaz3g]

Some of the members became capitalists and contrived to get rid of the co-ops & boards creating their own businesses to do what the co-ops & marketing boards used to, conned other members by low initial fees & once the critical mass had been obtained increased the fees and became wealthy. Part of the reason the rich are now richer & the less so, the new poor.

Dont get me started about Murray-Goulburn!

[pmccarthy]

Our local co-op cool store is struggling as family orchards are sold off to big firms and tree changers. But it is still trying to service the few remaining clients.

[Old Koreelah]

Killarney Co-operative Dairy Association, of which my dad was a long-time director, is still going strong after over 100 years. It has changed focus and adapted, but is still central to that community.

[facthunter]

The idea of a cooperative is fine and should be efficient till you get a CEO who structures it for a mate (for a suitable fee, Secret of course) to be disposed of for an amount too good to refuse or where each Board member gets a once only kick back for expediting the disposal of the whole operation to a consortium of some kind formed for the purpose of the deal being done. The average poor Farmer bastard doesn't know till it's all over if ever, what actually went on. Nev