on the chocolate wheel at that

actually, that's a pretty common misconception about FX speculation. it's not gambling at all, but it is very high risk.

So its just a very high risk way to speculate on a difficult to determine outcome with your hard earned?

My bad - that doesn't sound like gambling at all! :)

depends on how you define gambling =)

i tend to think of gambling as an uncertain event with an expected value of 0 or less.

But if the US crashed it'll affect us all.......

Yes if the US crashes it does effect us. Unless we have a united economic effort. For example. Putting together all economies

i.e: Yen, Euro and the general Dollar (AU/NZ/etc)?

If not then we might just see Los Angeles cirqua 1992.

The Los Angeles riots of 1992, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six days following the verdict. Widespread looting, assault, arson, and murder occurred, and property damages totaled one billion dollars. Many of the crimes were gang-motivated or perpetrated. In all, 53 people died during the riots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LA_Riots


If anything start buying up gold. Gold is always worth something.

Funny thing about economics. We send stuff over to China and China charges for manafacturing and sends it back over here. But what happens when there is nothing left to export? or China takes the headway economy from the US?

The best option is economic unity. The worst/worser option is civil unrest.

Maybe more recently?

The 2005 civil unrest in France of October and November was a series of riots and violent clashes, involving mainly the burning of cars and public buildings at night starting on October 27, 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois. Events spread to poor housing projects (the cités HLM) in various parts of France. A state of emergency was declared on November 8, 2005. It was extended for three months on 16 November by the Parliament.[1][2][3] The biggest riots since the May 1968 unrest were triggered by the accidental death of two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, in Clichy-sous-Bois, a working-class commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, who were chased by the police and tried to hide from the police in a power substation where they were electrocuted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France


There is also a lot of poor/er estate housing in UK/Britain from the days of the Blair administration. I wouldn't want to be in the United Kingdom at the moment I can tell you that much.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5099038.stm

Its worse then gambling (and involves no more skill). Some people play with enough money in the market to affect outcomes and in doing so damage economies (ie. Soros), infact if it were gambling it would probably be far more regulated.

taggs can only say its not gambling by playing games with definitions.

So ... lets play the definition game thanks to reference.com

gamble

2. to stake or risk money, or anything of value, on the outcome of something involving chance: to gamble on a toss of the dice.
4. to wager or risk (money or something else of value): to gamble one's freedom.
5. to take a chance on; venture; risk: I'm gambling that our new store will be a success.
–noun


Speculate

3. to engage in any business transaction involving considerable risk or the chance of large gains, esp. to buy and sell commodities, stocks, etc., in the expectation of a quick or very large profit


Speculate to me looks like a fancy financial synonym for gamble.
None of the definitions for gamble even closely resemble yours taggs.

sigh...

and here comes obes again with his degree in economics/finance from the university of google... remember the last time you tried to argue this exact same point with me, obes? you were quoting some random from a retail forex trading site and trying to pass it off as the US Foreign Exchange, an institution that doesn't exist?

Its worse then gambling (and involves no more skill).

Have you ever worked in or studied finance, in particular currency trading, at all? because that's utter bulls***. never mind decades of academic literature that completely contradicts what you're trying to argue. Also you can completely disregard the FACT that active currency management has been shown historically to add value to firms/funds, just go down to the city and ask any employee of a funds management firm whether that's true or not. let me know how that goes for you.

taggs can only say its not gambling by playing games with definitions.

So ... lets play the definition game thanks to reference.com

ok, obes...

2. to stake or risk money, or anything of value, on the outcome of something involving chance: to gamble on a toss of the dice.
4. to wager or risk (money or something else of value): to gamble one's freedom.
5. to take a chance on; venture; risk: I'm gambling that our new store will be a success.

according to these definitions every single type of investment is considered gambling, because every single investment involves risk.

3. to engage in any business transaction involving considerable risk or the chance of large gains, esp. to buy and sell commodities, stocks, etc., in the expectation of a quick or very large profit

sounds about right. doesn't say anything about gambling though does it, it only mentions risk. basically what we're arguing is semantics which I explained to you last time - it's just about risk/return profiles, how much risk you're willing to bear for certain returns.

how about you answer me this obes, what is the difference between investing and gambling?

the answer to that question is the basis of what I said earlier. i'll explain that further when you answer the question.

Superforms predictions !!

remember the aussie doller isnt really getting stronger.. its US and UK are getting weaker...

my predictions for AUD/USD would be 1.20-1.30 in the next 6-12 months
i would also predict a 20% fall in the pound

also time to get out of resources!!!!!!!!! keep ducking and weaving.. stay ahead of the trends..

back to bonds

cash is king. sell everything while u can. it's about to get real bad.

i have a question for the exchange gurus.
we're going to Italy at xmas.
would i be better buying $US now and converting that to Euro or straight AU to Euro?

taggs you can get all the degrees you like but to say playing in foreign exchange is anything more then gambling is nuttier then a snickers without chocolate.

I rekon the guys working for NAB had degrees. And they lost what quarter of a billion dollars ?

would i be better buying $US now and converting that to Euro or straight AU to Euro?

Every exchange carries a fee.

yes your better off just converting to euros so you dont get slugged 2 times with fees

thx guys

taggs you can get all the degrees you like but to say playing in foreign exchange is anything more then gambling is nuttier then a snickers without chocolate.

define gambling.

If we accept that ventures where you offset risk with reward are a 'gamble' then its obviously gambling. Common usage of the word gamble suggests this.

Gambling applies to lots of activity that you wouldn't place a traditional bet on. For example, in evaluating a new software development job I might consider it a 'bit of a gamble' to proceed without a hefty deposit for a new client with dubious backing.

exchange rate speculation is gambling just like betting on the horses is gambling. No one really knows the outcome, but experts have a better chance of doing well.

Its not like gambling on the pokies, where the odds are stacked against you at a set ratio.

this is actually a pretty intersting thought exercise. would you consider any of the following activities gambling?

bank deposits?
bonds?
equities?
property?
crossing the street?

and why?

they are all gambles, with varying degrees of odds and payouts~!

anywhere where the return is not guaranteed is a gamble.

crossing the street?

I assume you mean "getting killed while" as the negative outcome here - this is something you can effectively control the risk in - not completely (ie, a meteorite might slam through the atmosphere into you while you're crossing), but you can get it as asymptotically close to zero as is possible, thus reducing the risk to effectively nothing. OR SO I BELIEVE, but I have mad road crossing skillz from my early days playing frogger.

i think in colloquial usage gambling indicates entering into a risk arrangement where the "better" has zero/minute control over the outcome.

poker machine = "gamble"

crossing the street = not a "gamble" - if the pedestrian takes all reasonable precautions, short of a freak occurrence, they will cross safely.

edit: yes, the frogger analogy is quite relevant.

spook: you win!

trog: i mean in the sense that theres a 99.999% chance of getting a small benefit, or increase in utility, and a 0.001% chance of a very large negative consequence, or loss of utility.

infi: i agree that's what common usage of the word means, though i'm trying to get obes to differentiate between investing and gambling - because i think that there is a fundamental difference between the two. investing, in a sense, is a special form of gambling where the expected value can be reasonably assumed to be positive. no one would buy stocks or bonds if the expected value was negative. i'm suggesting that currency specualation also has a positive expected value and thus shouldn't be considered gambing in the sense that pokies are.

it's not really about how much 'control' the participant has. when buying stocks the buyer has little control over what happens to the stock price, but they still do so with a reasonable expectation that it will increase.

edit: for clarity. =)

last edited by taggs at 14:51:43 21/Jul/08

its all gambling

the only way not to gamble is to take what you have and do nothing with it..

as soon as you say i'm going to try x and hopefully i'll get x+y, if it fails i'll get x-y -- your gambling

While I totally kick ass at Frogger, I'm not sure that translates into real-world skills.

Or in another light... ATO's view:

In the Commissioner's view, the word 'gambling' here refers to activities involving primarily chance which have a recreational or sporting character, such as lotteries or games of chance and betting on horse racing. It is not considered to have the technical legal meaning of wagering, or the popular meaning of mere risk-taking

I view betting/gambling to be swapping cash for a fixed risk (ie odds) on a given outcome. The return would either be; -x, x or x+y. (obviously poker is excluded from this, as it is a real man's game and you need mad skillz!)

Investing would be swapping cash for an asset where the risk is inherent to the asset and the return is unknown.

Now buying and selling of currencies can be done for a few reasons (that I know of)
1) to sell foreign currency exposures on your balance sheet (ie to avoid risk) 2) to hedge a future transaction's exposure to foreign currency movements (ie to avoid risk)
3) to buy/sell foreign currency for profit making reasons. (ie to take on risk)

So mostly it is not used for risk taking reasons, but even when it is, that does not constitute gambling, imo.

This conversation is pretty retarded because you're even taking a gamble just by having cash sit in the bank at 0% interest or physically holding cash in your hand because its buying power is changing due to inflation +/-

obviously poker is excluded from this

where do you play twat?

no where now, I used to play every week with mates when i lived in the states. :'(

I went to a game over here with some 'associates' but that was s***, as I was the only one that new all the rules out of 12 of us, and it was only hold'em ffs.

u in london? let me know if you want to go to a pokr club or home game