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Health And Safety Issues
Jan. 16th, 2009 07:07 amThe UK has introduced stricter Health & Safety penalties, making jail sentences possible for individuals who either cause death through acting recklessly or who repeatedly endanger staff through acting recklessly. All fair enough.
My only problem with HSE people is that I have yet to meet one who understands the concept of risk vs reward. All risk is "bad", no matter what the potential benefit. Suppose, for example, HSE officials had been around when someone invented how to make fire? That, I would imagine, would have been a real no-no.
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The plane crash last night in the Hudson Bay seems to have the world and his wife praising the pilot of the Airbus 380 for his skill in bringing the plane down safely in the river. I have wondered in the past how many people have actually been saved from death as a result of there being a lifejacket under your seat in a plane (Health & Safety again!), with my estimate being somewhere between nought and nought over the past decade. Here, though, was the chance for the lifejacket to show its mettle! But, sadly, that turned out not to be the case. The water was freezing and the people were rescued without going into the water.
(LATER UPDATE. Turns out that some people WERE pulled out of the water. So, yay for lifejackets on planes! It's incredible that annyone survived if they were in the water. The rescuers must have got there within seconds. I've been on 12th Avenue in December, looking out over the Hudson Bay (as well as crossing on the Staten Island Ferry) and I can tell you that you wouldn't rate highly the chances of anyone surviving for more than a minute if they were dropped into it. It's fucking cold!
Only one newspaper seems to have taken a different tack. Canadian Geese Courier, the publication "for Geese of all colours and creeds", refers to the pilot as an executioner, "the butcher in the Airbus". It also announced a campaign to end all airflights on the grounds that they are clearly a danger to birds.
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My recent trades on the FTSE highlighted the fact that the authorities still can't see that the distinction between "investment" and "gambling" is logically meaningless and is based on legislation put together by people who didn't understand the laws of probability. I'm not moaning, in that it works to my advantage, but I would love the logic of a situation where my short position on the FTSE is an untaxable gain or loss, whereas gains or losses on my FTSE holdings are taxable or tax-deductible. And yet, although there is a degree of basis risk involved, one position effectively cancels out the other.
It struck me that this offered a potential bed-and-breakfast play for stocks that, should I need it, would enable me to park capital gains tax in years where I could use it up. This might well become a factor in future years.
Many years ago the government stopped the b&b strategy of selling shares one day and buying them back the next, introducing a 60-day (I think) moratorium. A bit like not being able to sit back at the same poker table with a starting stack when you left only five minutes earlier with a quizillion dollars. However, if you sold the shares on any date between Feb 5 and April 4, buying back 61 days later, and for that period of time held a three-month future on the FTSE, you effectively "park" your capital gain in the prevailing financial year, and have a futures position as a hedge (which, being a spread bet, is also untaxed) to protect against changes in share price. Obviously this only protects against market trends rather than significant individual price movements, but the spread-betting companies also offer individual share price futures, which would reduce the basis risk even further (albeit at an inreased trading cost).
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Serious DIY scheduled for the weekend, with shelves and painting dominating the agenda. I've hit a "cold" period on the tables, but I'm not losing money. I just can't win any! A couple of years ago I think that I would have lost quite a bit through "calls of despair", but this year I've managed to grit my teeth and fold river after river when I don't think that the odds I'm being offered are sufficient.
One of the hardest skills to learn in poker is to be able to fold a hand about which you had been optimistic at the beginning of the hand, particularly when you have had a series of bad cards or when you have already suffered a series of baddish beats. A typical example might be when you flop the bottom straight and the flop is double-suited. You need to play this kind of hand fast, but if opponents don't co-operate, you can still find yourself facing a big river bet from a tight-passive player when a danger card comes. If that guy has a v low aggression factor and no history of bluffing, you have to throw the hand away, rather than call, just to prove to yourself how unlucky you are running.
These folds are easier in no limit, where bet-sizing gives you much more of a clue about what is going on (and the loss vs size of pot is correspondingly greater), but the ability to stop thinking "Wow, great hand" and start thinking "actually, what I have here is a pile of shit" is a valuable skill.
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FTSE reached 4240 around lunchtime. Lucky it was a Friday. As per previous post, am now back short again.
PJ
My only problem with HSE people is that I have yet to meet one who understands the concept of risk vs reward. All risk is "bad", no matter what the potential benefit. Suppose, for example, HSE officials had been around when someone invented how to make fire? That, I would imagine, would have been a real no-no.
+++++++
The plane crash last night in the Hudson Bay seems to have the world and his wife praising the pilot of the Airbus 380 for his skill in bringing the plane down safely in the river. I have wondered in the past how many people have actually been saved from death as a result of there being a lifejacket under your seat in a plane (Health & Safety again!), with my estimate being somewhere between nought and nought over the past decade. Here, though, was the chance for the lifejacket to show its mettle! But, sadly, that turned out not to be the case. The water was freezing and the people were rescued without going into the water.
(LATER UPDATE. Turns out that some people WERE pulled out of the water. So, yay for lifejackets on planes! It's incredible that annyone survived if they were in the water. The rescuers must have got there within seconds. I've been on 12th Avenue in December, looking out over the Hudson Bay (as well as crossing on the Staten Island Ferry) and I can tell you that you wouldn't rate highly the chances of anyone surviving for more than a minute if they were dropped into it. It's fucking cold!
Only one newspaper seems to have taken a different tack. Canadian Geese Courier, the publication "for Geese of all colours and creeds", refers to the pilot as an executioner, "the butcher in the Airbus". It also announced a campaign to end all airflights on the grounds that they are clearly a danger to birds.
++++++++
My recent trades on the FTSE highlighted the fact that the authorities still can't see that the distinction between "investment" and "gambling" is logically meaningless and is based on legislation put together by people who didn't understand the laws of probability. I'm not moaning, in that it works to my advantage, but I would love the logic of a situation where my short position on the FTSE is an untaxable gain or loss, whereas gains or losses on my FTSE holdings are taxable or tax-deductible. And yet, although there is a degree of basis risk involved, one position effectively cancels out the other.
It struck me that this offered a potential bed-and-breakfast play for stocks that, should I need it, would enable me to park capital gains tax in years where I could use it up. This might well become a factor in future years.
Many years ago the government stopped the b&b strategy of selling shares one day and buying them back the next, introducing a 60-day (I think) moratorium. A bit like not being able to sit back at the same poker table with a starting stack when you left only five minutes earlier with a quizillion dollars. However, if you sold the shares on any date between Feb 5 and April 4, buying back 61 days later, and for that period of time held a three-month future on the FTSE, you effectively "park" your capital gain in the prevailing financial year, and have a futures position as a hedge (which, being a spread bet, is also untaxed) to protect against changes in share price. Obviously this only protects against market trends rather than significant individual price movements, but the spread-betting companies also offer individual share price futures, which would reduce the basis risk even further (albeit at an inreased trading cost).
++++++++
Serious DIY scheduled for the weekend, with shelves and painting dominating the agenda. I've hit a "cold" period on the tables, but I'm not losing money. I just can't win any! A couple of years ago I think that I would have lost quite a bit through "calls of despair", but this year I've managed to grit my teeth and fold river after river when I don't think that the odds I'm being offered are sufficient.
One of the hardest skills to learn in poker is to be able to fold a hand about which you had been optimistic at the beginning of the hand, particularly when you have had a series of bad cards or when you have already suffered a series of baddish beats. A typical example might be when you flop the bottom straight and the flop is double-suited. You need to play this kind of hand fast, but if opponents don't co-operate, you can still find yourself facing a big river bet from a tight-passive player when a danger card comes. If that guy has a v low aggression factor and no history of bluffing, you have to throw the hand away, rather than call, just to prove to yourself how unlucky you are running.
These folds are easier in no limit, where bet-sizing gives you much more of a clue about what is going on (and the loss vs size of pot is correspondingly greater), but the ability to stop thinking "Wow, great hand" and start thinking "actually, what I have here is a pile of shit" is a valuable skill.
____________
FTSE reached 4240 around lunchtime. Lucky it was a Friday. As per previous post, am now back short again.
PJ
