ERICOPOLY

Also, the law doesn't say that prostitution is only illegal if the johns are married. It's illegal even for unwedded johns. So that marriage argument is bull-crap.

You are in just as much trouble with your wife if you have sex with your dental hygienist for free. So legality isn't what gives us pause. Any special reason you mentioned "dental hygienist sex"? Is that a fetish? Post some pics and the crowd wisdom will decide hot or not! Are you looking for some material to take to your sperm bank?

The trouble with the Mrs is one example. Your guilt is another. These are examples that keep us monogamous without needing police intervention. However, I can't say being married is a violation of our instincts. There are examples of monogamy throughout the animal kingdom, even amongst primates. Same for polyamory. So are you being driven by your instincts or your morals? It might just be convenient that you can be morally superior whilst merely acting within your instincts. However, there is sexual variation amongst species as well. Another person may be acting within his instincts and yet have multiple partners at once. He is not acting outside of his idea of moral behavior. We are social animals with social instincts. Typically, if you feel bad about something it's because your actions were harmful to another -- this is going to happen if you are programmed to cooperate with others within a social unit. Problems arise when some of us are programmed with monogamous instincts, some with polyamorous, and some with homosexual. We are going to get at each other's throats as to what is "moral" or not. That's because of the lack of understanding how we are different.

You are in just as much trouble with your wife if you have sex with your dental hygienist for free. So legality isn't what gives us pause.

I don't want my daughter to smoke cigarettes. I don't want her to chew gum. I don't want her drunk. I don't want her to drop out of school. I don't want her to use drugs. I don't want her to be a prostitute. That's all true. Now if I make them all illegal, I'm covered right? Well, how come we have drugs and prostitution if they are illegal? So the question is... Since we're pretty much screwed either way on the drugs and prostitution issue, why do we have to create a lucrative industry for violent gangs/criminals? My parents are Australian and prostitution there is legal. I haven't heard of any troubles whatsoever. And yes, your wife hates illegal prostitutes just as much. It's not like making it illegal is going to save you from yourself if you have the itch. Just ask Elliott Spitzer. Me, I have self control and don't need laws to define my morals.

I'd bet that there would be more E-Coli poisoning in the US if hamburger meat were illegal. USDA does not regulate the black market.

Eric, Do the parents have to pay extra for the HPV medication at least then? Someone's gotta cover it. It shouldn't be passed along to the others not playing the game. The vaccines could be purchased with the enforcement savings from decriminalization of prostitution. That cost (enforcement/incarceration) is born by all but is due to the moralists insisting on these vice laws. By the way, what disease is spread by hand jobs? There is only enforcement cost with no public health concern there. Sex is bizarre in that it's legal only when it's free. Look,if you are a woman and if you are rather "loose", it doesn't seem like an improvement to be so cheap as to be free at the same time. I can buy your original argument but not this one. Let's say we started fresh so that the moralists didn't have say in it. Prostitution would be legal and, as a result, there are no costs of law enforcements. However, the added costs of healthcare would still be in the system (or for sleeping around, in general). The added costs are there even if we remove the artificial constraint of law enforcement. Since the real cost is there, I don't see how it's fair to layer that on to the "moral" citizens. You can legalize professional sex with condom and outlaw free hookup sex without condoms -- that is, if this is really about health issues and not about morals. The health issue is a red herring. Google "escort backpage [your city]". Now, are those girls licensed prostitutes that undergo a regular health checkup? Nope. Illegal prostitution means disease. Legalized is less so. Just like hamburger meat, a regular inspection helps but no guarantee. Illegal just adds to the health costs. But you are against the health costs it seems? Hmmm. I think it's just a moral hurdle. The prostitutes are there either way, but you could do better from a health standpoint if they were certified by a state health inspector. Plus, you could legalize protected sex only. For example, hand jobs are illegal from prostitutes? Why? Don't argue it's a health issue.

Just buy a reloading press if bullets are 5,000. Hand loading is pretty easy.

Eric, Do the parents have to pay extra for the HPV medication at least then? Someone's gotta cover it. It shouldn't be passed along to the others not playing the game. The vaccines could be purchased with the enforcement savings from decriminalization of prostitution. That cost (enforcement/incarceration) is born by all but is due to the moralists insisting on these vice laws. By the way, what disease is spread by hand jobs? There is only enforcement cost with no public health concern there. Sex is bizarre in that it's legal only when it's free. Look,if you are a woman and if you are rather "loose", it doesn't seem like an improvement to be so cheap as to be free at the same time.

Paul, The easy way to cut down on STD costs is to make the HPV vaccine mandatory for 12 yr old girls. People's morals shouldn't drive up costs!

So I think if you legalized the distribution of both, we'd end more than 50% of the violence in this country overnight. You had drive-by shootings with tommy guns when Al Capone was minting money from alcohol prohibition. I feel like if you just take away the source of the money, the gangs are bankrupt. You don't have licensed lawyers and licensed psychologists shooting at each other with AK-47s -- instead, they just advertise legitimately for increased market share. Things just happen that way when they're legalized. You don't need to ban guns to end the gang shootings.

You're welcome Planet Earth.

It's fun to think about it on a pre-tax basis (using NOLs). Quarterly, the pre-tax earnings yield is 4% today... per quarter. I still think it makes more sense to think about it after-tax and then just bump it up by a finite amount for the "one time" value of the NOLs. (by "one time", I mean for one several-year period of time). They are pulling in $500m per week pre-tax.

Back then was $5 ~ 6 .... now it's almost tripled... do you like it as much? just curious... Thx! Gary $8 on Aug 1, 2011. Of course, the very next trading day it hit $7. A bit like being $15 yesterday and $13 on Monday. Certainly, it's less exciting these days.

It's been almost three years now since the days in 2011 when many of us bought. Remember August 2011 when AIG filed suit? It seemed like lawsuits were being filed weekly. Now, we're through most of them.

BAC traded for a 4% premium to tangible book yesterday. Book value per share is up to $21.16, for whatever that's worth. The stock market is annoying.

Vehicles in transit are already purchased. Built to order. Plus, they have pre-order float from ModelX reservations.

BAC is offering $7b cash for a total settlement of $14b. The government wants more cash (at least $10b and a total settlement of $17b). So they are perhaps $3b in cash apart. The bank is earning $6b+ pre-tax quarterly at the moment. Therefore, the difference is only 6 weeks. We are already 4 weeks into the present quarter. I think a deal will come instead of going to trial.

This of course can only be done if you service the cars directly -- rather than have independently owned dealerships doing the servicing: Eventually a Tesla service team will be able to pick up your car (maybe while you're at work), service it, and return it to you that same day. The plan is for an entire pit crew team to work on the car at the same time. http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/31/autos/tesla-service-elves/index.html?iid=HP_LN

Tesla does not make a profit servicing it's cars -- it does so at cost. There is also less to service in the first place with electric cars. Traditional dealerships would therefore never want to sell a Tesla, unless Tesla cut them a really fat commission on sale. That would make the sticker price too high on the sale for an already-very-expensive car. So how will BMW build and sell all-electric "Tesla killers"? Will they sell them directly, undercutting their dealerships?

Get that $1,000 bucks ready!

I need some help here on how to explain away Q2 GDP if it comes in at 4%. Shall we just say it's due to the weather? This year is warmer than average.

Do you mind posting the list? Unfortunately I'm not at liberty to post the list publicly, but Wrister's screener works as well. To Ericopoly, yes you can easily screen out companies that return their capital to shareholders and generate these high returns. Screener.co can do most of this stuff and they're fairly inexpensive and international. Their data is pulled via CapIQ. Thanks for the screener.co tip. I believe what I'm thinking about is a function that would serve the purpose of giving us the proper mix of variables to screen on. Okay, so it works like this: You tell it that you like companies with 20% ROE, a 15x P/E, and a 20% payout ratio. So you have it graph that across all combinations of ROE, P/E and Payout Ratio. It would be essentially a three dimensional function. It would find you, for example, the right combination of P/E and Payout Ratio to screen for if you wanted to know the equivalents given a 10% ROE. Therefore, you could generate a bigger list of candidates to pick over. Theoretically, you may improve your returns if the lower ROE companies are out of favor amongst stock screeners. Call it a three-dimensional "equivalency" function.

Stated differently, do you make more money from company A or company B? A: 10% ROE with 100% payout ratio B: 20% ROE with 100% payout ratio Given that you purchase either at identical P/E. Okay, then change payout ratio to 0%. It makes a world of difference.

I am seeing 213 companies with >20% ROE & <20 PE with US traded stock. A few large caps that fit the bill: AAPL MSFT WMT IBM ORCL UTX MCD BA MO DEO LMT ACN I am using CapitalIq The screen is less meaningful when a large percentage of earnings are returned to shareholders. For example, if 99% of earnings are returned, then only 1% are retained and theoretically compounded at the 20% ROE rate. So I should think the screen could be tweaked to filter for this.