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anghraine · 2 years

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I re-read the whole academic drama around Irish-Americans and NINA policies, because it was relevant for something I'm working on and I'd forgotten some of the details.

A relatively conservative professor wrote an article in the early 2000s arguing that the Irish-American cultural memory of NINA policies ("No Irish Need Apply" restrictions on both Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans, mainly in the 19th century but persisting in some places into the 20th) is hugely overblown, with the implication that anti-Irish prejudice in the US at the time was not really that big a deal in general.

It struck me as a bit odd for a conservative professor to pull this argument when the usual approach is to use the history of anti-Irish policies to deny very contemporary racism experienced by people of color or blame its victims. I'd expect "Irish-Americans are over-exaggerating their historical oppression because they want to frame themselves as oppressed people despite being the beneficiaries of modern whiteness" from progressives more, tbh (since that is indeed an issue!).

On top of that, some elements of the author's conduct can only be described as extremely unprofessional, as when he speculates that Irish-Americans collectively remember a history that either never happened or was extremely limited in its effects because of ... uhhh drunkenly imagining it, basically (no obnoxious stereotypes there, no sirree!). Another scholar described trying to talk to him about the issue, since he (Scholar 2) had seen considerable evidence to the contrary, and the author shrugged him off as a defensive Irish-American (Scholar 2 noted that he is neither Irish nor US American).

Despite the issues, this interpretation gained fairly broad academic acceptance, though with some reservations (and in other cases, quiet disbelief). But back around 2015, Rebecca Fried (who I believe was a middle school student at the time) ran over the whole thing and found it deeply puzzling, since she'd seen very considerable evidence of NINA policies in digital archives.

She ended up putting together a very polite rebuttal in which she pointed out that these kinds of documents often don't survive, as Scholar 1 undoubtedly knew, so the dozens of them that she did find likely represented a real and widespread phenomenon in the United States rather than drunken exaggeration that allowed Irish-Americans to manufacture solidarity without much cause and therefore justify the evils of ... unionizing.

(Yeah, the original article is a lot.)

The original author responded in the comments on coverage of her article, which was published by the same journal as his own (an Oxford one, I think). His response was predictably condescending and sneering, and also very nitpicky—basically he argued that he'd been talking about a very specific iteration of the NINA issue, but since his explanation of why the Irish-American community would make this grand mistake was so sweeping and obnoxious, and also even his approach to the specific situation he claimed to be addressing was clearly flawed and imprecise (in my opinion, obviously not claiming to be unbiased here).

But apart from the weird mix of the blatant anti-labor rights stuff and the stereotypes about Irish and Irish-American people and the lack of rigor and consistency in the focus, it was also interesting to see how something so clearly flawed and partial could not only pass muster but gain widespread acceptance despite considerable evidence to the contrary along with the records of even so large and assimilated a group as Irish-Americans. This isn't ancient history, it al went down less than 10 years ago.

#dude is such an asshole though. his response to fried would be too one dimensionally douchey for a novel #though he certainly does himself no favors in his original article either #but maybe the 'lol maybe they got drunk and confused a song with real oppression' sounds less batshit to oxford #anghraine babbles #ivory tower blogging #irish american blogging #long post #history blogging #us american blogging

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tinyshe · 4 years

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The Fauci Files

At 79 years old, Dr. Anthony Fauci — who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 — has yet to come out with the “Big One” — a vaccine or infectious disease treatment that will allow him to retire with a victory under his belt.

He failed to create a successful vaccine for AIDS, SARS, MERS and Ebola. A COVID-19 vaccine is essentially his last chance to go out in a blaze of glory. As evidenced by his history, he will stop at nothing to protect Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and Gilead’s antiviral Remdesivir.

He even threw tried and true pandemic protocols out the window when COVID-19 hit, turning into an unquestioning spokesman for draconian liberty-stripping measures instead. To echo a question asked by Dr. Sal Martingano in his article,1 “Dr. Fauci: ‘Expert’ or Co-Conspirator,” why are we not questioning this so-called expert?

Fauci ‘Has Been Wrong About Everything’

The risk we take when listening to Fauci is that, so far, he’s been wrong about most things. In a July 14, 2020, “Opposing View” editorial in USA Today, White House adviser Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, stated that Fauci “has been wrong about everything that I have interacted with him on.”2 According to Navarro, Fauci’s errors in judgment include:3

• Opposing the ban on incoming flights from China in late January 2020.

• Telling the American people the novel virus outbreak was nothing to worry about well into February.

• Flip-flopping on the use of masks — first mocking people for wearing them, and then insisting they should. In fact, mid-July, he suddenly urged governments to “be as forceful as possible” on mask rules.4

• Claiming there was only anecdotal evidence supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine, when the scientific grounds for it go as far back as 2005, when the study,5 “Chloroquine Is a Potent Inhibitor of SARS Coronavirus Infection and Spread,” was published in the Virology Journal.

Fauci should have been well aware of this publication. According to that study,6 “Chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage,” the study authors said. In other words, the drug worked both for prevention and treatment.

As noted by Navarro, more recent research found hydroxychloroquine reduced the mortality rate among COVID-19 patients by 50% when used early.

Interestingly, in a March 24, 2020, interview7 with Chris Stigall, Fauci did say that — were he to speak strictly as a doctor treating patients — he would certainly prescribe chloroquine to COVID-19 patients, particularly if there were no other options.

Then, in August, he flipped back to insisting hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work,8 even though by that time, there were several studies demonstrating its effectiveness against COVID-19 specifically.

So, it appears Fauci has had a hard time making up his mind on this issue as well, on the one hand dismissing the drug as either untested or ineffective against COVID-19, and on the other admitting it would be wise to use, seeing how the options are so limited.

Navarro continues:9

“Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open. So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution.”

Fauci Has Done Nothing to Help Unite the Country

While Fauci claims to be exasperated by how political the pandemic has become,10 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pointed out in an August 2, 2020, Instagram post11 that Fauci himself is, at least in part, part of the problem, as his double standards on hydroxychloroquine have done much to polarize and divide the nation:

“Fauci insists he will not approve HCQ for COVID until its efficacy is proven in ‘randomized, double blind placebo studies.’ To date, Dr. Fauci has never advocated such studies for any of the 72 vaccine doses added to the mandatory childhood schedule since he took over NIAID in 1984. Nor is he requiring them for the COVID vaccines currently racing for approval.

Why should chloroquine be the only remedy required to cross this high hurdle? HCQ is less in need of randomized placebo studies than any of these vaccines since its safety is well established after 60 years of use and decades on WHO’s listed of ‘essential medicines.’

Fauci’s peculiar hostility towards HCQ is consistent with his half century bias favoring vaccines and patent medicines. Dr. Fauci’s double standards create confusion, mistrust and polarization.”

In a June 10, 2020, article,12 Global Research also questioned Fauci’s many attempts to disparage the drug for no apparently valid reason; even promoting the fake (and ultimately retracted) Lancet study that claimed to show hydroxychloroquine was dangerous. At the end of the day, who benefits? Well, certainly it benefits the drug and vaccine industries, which seems to be where Fauci’s loyalties lie.

Fauci’s Bias Is Hard to Miss

While Fauci is not named on the patents of either Moderna’s vaccine or Remdesivir, the NIH does have a 50% stake in Moderna’s vaccine,13 and the recognition that would come with a successful vaccine launch would certainly include Fauci.

He also has lots to lose — if nothing else, his pride — if Remdesivir doesn’t become a blockbuster, as his NIAID is sponsoring the clinical trials.14 The NIAID also supported the original research into Remdesivir, when it was aimed at treating Ebola.15

His bias here is clear for anyone to see. April 29, 2020, he stated16 Remdesivir "has a clear-cut and significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery." How good is that? Patients on the drug recovered in 11 days, on average, compared to 15 days among those receiving a placebo. Overall, the improvement rate for the drug was 31%.

Meanwhile, research17 now shows hydroxychloroquine reduced mortality by 50% when given early, and many doctors anecdotally claim survival rates close to 100%. This still isn’t good enough for Fauci, who continues insisting hydroxychloroquine is a bust.18

His stance on these two drugs certainly doesn’t make sense based on the data alone. But it does make sense if he wants (or has been instructed) to protect the profits of Remdesivir.

As director of NIAID, which has been part of Remdesivir’s development from the start, why wouldn’t he want to see it become a moneymaker for the agency he dedicated his career to? It also makes sense when you consider his primary job is to raise funds for biodefense research, primarily vaccines but also diagnostics and drug therapies.19,20

Fauci Doubts Safety of Russian Vaccine

Early in August 2020, Russia announced they would begin vaccinating citizens with its own COVID-19 vaccine, despite not finishing large-scale human trials.21 The announcement drew skepticism from American infectious disease specialists, including Fauci, who said he has “serious doubts” that Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine is actually safe and effective.22

Fauci conveniently ignores the many failed attempts to create other coronavirus vaccines over the past two decades, including vaccines against SARS and MERS.

He’s probably right on that point. It’s hard to imagine you can prove safety and effectiveness in a mere two months of trials. But the fast-tracked vaccine efforts of the U.S. and EU are hardly bound to be significantly better, considering the many shortcuts that are being taken.

Fauci Ignores Two Decades of Failed Coronavirus Vaccines

Despite being in a position to know better, Fauci conveniently ignores the many failed attempts to create other coronavirus vaccines over the past two decades, including vaccines against SARS and MERS. A paper23 by Eriko Padron-Regalado, “Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: Lessons From Other Coronavirus Strains” reviews some of these past experiences. As noted in the Conservative Review:24

“Since their emergence in 2003 and 2012 respectively, no safe and efficacious human vaccines for either SARS-Cov1 or MERS have been developed.

Moreover, experimental non-human (animal model) evaluations of four SARS-Cov1 candidate vaccine types, revealed that despite conferring some protection against infection with SARS-Cov1, each also caused serious lung injury, caused by an overreaction of the immune system, upon viral challenge.25

Identical ‘hypersensitive-type’ lung injury occurred26 when mice were administered a candidate MERS-Cov vaccine, then challenged with infectious virus, negating the ostensible benefit achieved by their development of promising … ‘antibodies’ … which might have provided immunity to MERS-Cov.

These disappointing experimental observations must serve as a cautionary tale for SARS-Cov2 vaccination programs to control epidemic COVID-19 disease.”

NIAID Safety Controversies and Ethics Violations

When recently asked for a rebuttal to criticism of his leadership during the pandemic, Fauci replied, “I think you can trust me,” citing his long record of service in government medicine. However, that long service record is fraught with ethics and safety lapses.

For example, in 2005, NPR reported27 the NIH tested novel AIDS drugs on hundreds of HIV-positive children in state foster care during the late 1980s and90s without assigning patient advocates to monitor the children’s health, as is required by law in most states.

Fauci was appointed director of the NIAID in 1984. The AIDS research was part of his research portfolio, and the AIDS research division reported directly to him, so these violations occurred on his watch.28 In 2008, two NIH biomedical ethicists published a paper on the controversial practice of using wards of the state as guinea pigs, noting:29

"Enrolling wards of the state in research raises two major concerns: the possibility that an unfair share of the burdens of research might fall on wards, and the need to ensure interests of individual wards are accounted for ... Having special protections only for some categories is misguided. Furthermore, some of the existing protections ought to be strengthened."

Under Fauci, the NIAID became the largest funder of HIV/AIDS in the world.30 Despite that, numerous articles over the years have discussed how AIDS activists have been less than satisfied with Fauci and the NIAID.31,32,33 A 1986 article stated:34

“If Fauci were less intent on amassing power within the federal health bureaucracy … he would have left AIDS treatment research with the NCI, where it began, relying on that institute's proven expertise in organizing large, multisite clinical trials for cancer therapies."

A July 23, 2020, article in Just the News lists several other safety and ethics problems that Fauci has been involved in through the years, including conflict of interest violations in vaccine research.35

Just the News also interviewed NIAID chief of ethics and regulatory compliance Dr. Jonathan Fishbein, whom the NIAID was forced to reinstate in 2005 after it was determined that Fishbein had been wrongly fired in retaliation for raising concerns about lack of safety in some of the agency’s research:36

“Fishbein said … Fauci failed to take responsibility for the managers and researchers working below him when signs of trouble emerged, allowing problems to persist until others intervened. ‘Fauci is all about Fauci,’ Fishbein said. ‘He loves being the headline. It’s his ego.’”

Fauci’s Connections to Wuhan Lab

By now, you probably also know that the NIAID funded gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As reported by Newsweek:37

“In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.”

This money was not given directly, but rather funneled to the Wuhan lab via the EcoHealth Alliance. According to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal,38 the NIH is now insisting EcoHealth Alliance submit all information and materials from the Wuhan lab before it’s allowed to resume funding.

Fauci is a longtime proponent of dangerous gain-of-function research. In 2003, he wrote an article39 published in the journal Nature on how “the world needs new and creative ways to counter bioterrorism.”

“We will pursue innovative approaches for modulating innate immunity to induce and enhance protection against many biological pathogens, as well as simple and rapid molecularly based diagnostics to detect, characterize and quantify infectious threats,” Fauci wrote.

“These are lofty goals that may take many years to accomplish — but we must aspire to them. Third, we must enormously strengthen our interactions with the private sector, including biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical corporations.

Many biodefence-related products that we are pursuing do not provide sufficient incentives for industry — the potential profit margin for companies is tenuous, and there is no guarantee that products would be used.

Therefore, we will seek non-traditional collaborations with industry, for example guaranteeing that products will be purchased if companies sign up … so that we can quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments …”

With that, there can be little question about which team Fauci is on. He’s on the side of drug and vaccine makers, and has been for decades. There’s no money to be made by either the agency or its private collaborators from natural products such as vitamin D, vitamin C, quercetin or its drug equivalent, hydroxychloroquine. All of these are dirt-cheap and off patent.

Prediction Track Record = Null

Fauci’s predictions for COVID-19 mortality have also turned out to be as inaccurate as all of his previous predictions. In 1987, he predicted heterosexual infection of HIV/AIDS would rise to 10% by 1991. It never rose above 4%.

He predicted the bird flu would result in 2 million to 7 million deaths. In the end, the avian H5N1 flu killed 440 worldwide. He sought billions of dollars to combat the threat of Zika, a virus that fizzled without making much of an impact anywhere.40

When you look at his track record, you realize he’s predicted “nightmare” scenarios for decades, none of which have materialized. Last but not least, Dr. Fauci serves on Bill Gates leadership council.

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herateleia-blog · 7 years

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E. The Tamer of Heroes and Horses ( The Transformation of Hera )

I now turn to the Iliadic diction used of Hera's relationship with heroes, to suggest that she tamed them as well--though in death, not marriage. The deaths of Heracles, Sarpedon, Patroklos, and Achilles provide the evidence.

Let us review what we know of the fate of the early Heracles. Although the Odyssey speaks of a divinized Heracles feasting with his wife Hebe on Mt. Olympus ( Od. 11.603), the Iliad does not:

oὐδὲ γὰρ oὐδὲ βίη 'Hρακλη̂oς φύγε κη̑ρα. ὄς περ φίλτατoς ἔσκε Διὶ Kρoνίωνι ἄνακτι· άλλά ἑ μoι̂ρα δάμασσε καὶ άργαλέoς χόλoς "Hρης.

For not even the strength of Heracles escaped destruction although he was dearest to lord Zeus Kronion, but fate and Hera's cruel rage tamed him. ( Il. 18.117-19)

Here is no hint of immortalization. Heracles' cult as a hero antedated his cult as a god, and his name, "he who wins fame from Hera," must have arisen when he was considered only a hero, since gods are not named after other gods. The "strength of Heracles" was tamed by "Hera's cruel rage," periphrastic phrases that may have been long in the tradition. 32. Hera must have had a pre-Olympian tradition of encounters with Heracles that ended in his death. He is ultimately subject to Hera, whose divine energy both begins and ends his life (19.114-119; 18.117-19). The deification of Heracles, so celebrated in Attic vase painting, "is indeed an indication of lateness." 33.

But the Iliadic tie between Hera and a hero's death is not limited to the fate of Heracles. She figures significantly in the deaths of Sarpedon, Patroklos, and especially Achilles. In the case of Sarpedon, Hera counsels Zeus to allow him to die and specifies burial rites that mirror Heraian rites. 34. In the recovery of Patroklos' corpse (18.165‐ 242), her initiative is decisive. Without the knowledge of Zeus "yoked on high" (ὑψί-ζυγoς 18.185), she sends Iris to urge Achilles to retrieve the body. 35. "Let not Patroklos become the sport of dogs," her message runs in part (18.178-79). To a hesitant Achilles, Iris insists: let him simply show himself and thus provide a breathing spell in which the Achaeans may retrieve the corpse. Armed with Athena's tasselled aegis about his shoulders and a golden cloud around his head, he creates the needed consternation. As the Achaeans return with the corpse, Hera, as it were, completes the ritual by causing all nature to join in the mourning: "Lady Hera with the look of an ox sent the unwilling Helios" to set early into Okeanos ("Hέλιoν δ' ἀκάμανταβoω̑πις πότνια "Hρη / πέμψεν 18.239-40). 36. Presumably, this final pericope and much of the passage reflect an earlier setting in which Hera's concern for a dead hero's shortened life leads her to interrupt the sun god's daily cycle. Nature's cycle shortens out of respect for the hero's shortened life.

But it is Achilles' dialogue with his divine horse that establishes Hera as pre-Olympian tamer of both heroes and horses ( Il. 19.404-17). Once in the heat of battle, Achilles calls out to his famed horses Xanthos and Balios, asking whether they will carry him back to the Achaeans. "This time we will save you," replies Xanthos, "the goddess white-armed Hera having given him voice" (αὐδήεντα δ' ἔθηκε θεὰ λευκώλενoς "Hρη 19.407). The nimble horse bows his head and speaks from underneath the yoke (ὑπὸ ζυγόφι), his mane streaming to the ground from under the yokepad (ζεὐγλης) beside the yokebar (παρὰ ζυγὸν 19.404-406). So situated-not unlike the yoked Kleobis and Biton (Herodotus 1.31)-he proclaims the essence of Hera's relationship to heroes: "A mighty god and powerful fate (θεός τε μέγας καἰ Moϊρα κρσταιή 19.410) will cause [your death]. You are fated to be tamed in battle by a god and a mortal" (ἀλλὰ σoἱ αὐτῳ̂ / μόρσιμόν ἐστι θεῳ̑ τε καὶ άνέρι |δφι δαμη̑ναι 19.416-17). Almost the very words that Achilles uses of Heracles' death (18.119; cf. 113). The yoked horse's horse‐ taming metaphor touchingly expresses his empathy with his master. Both master and Hera-voiced horse speak of "fate" and a "god" taming a hero. Yoking is a visual image that supports the metaphor of taming. The metaphor can refer to domestication in marriage, or, as here, to the ultimate taming in death.

Talking animals and talking rivers are rare in Homeric epic. Quite remarkably, both a talking river and a talking horse are named Xanthos and both are associated with Hera. 37. The talking horse was Poseidon's gift to Peleus on his wedding day. But the description of these horses evokes images that belong not only to Poseidon, but also to Hera. The yoked Xanthos and Balios fly "swift as the winds," as do Hera's horses. 38. Xanthos' mother, the "Harpy wind Podarge," conceives him by the west wind Zephyr while "grazing on the meadow beside the stream of Okeanos" (βoακoμένη λειμω̑νι παρὰ ῥόoν 'Ωκεανoι̂o 16.149-51). Podarge 'Swift of Foot' is imagined simultaneously as a whisking wind (Harpy means Snatcher) and as a mare, "grazing" (boskomenê) in the locale of Hera's world-end abode. 39. Significantly, Hera's streaking steeds graze on ambrosial grasses specially produced for them by the river Simoeis at a confluence of rivers (5.768-72). The similarities between Hera's and Achilles' teams in divine origin, speed, and grazing locales leave little doubt that the Hera-voiced Xanthos, prophesying his master's death from under his yokepad, was part of Heraian myth.Thus, the Iliad shows knowledge that Hera yokes or tames a talking horse and a talking river, and that she tames heroes in death, directly in the case of Heracles, and indirectly in other cases. The two greatest Hellenic heroes, Heracles andAchilles, achieve fame (kleos) through a death associated with a "Hera-taming" or "Hera-yoking."

32.See Chap. 5.A for morphological and metrical evidence. Among the pieces of the early Hera-Heracles tradition visible in the epic is Dione's Catalogue of divinities wounded by mortals in which Heracles wounds both Hera and Hades at the Gate (Pulos or pulê), a name early viewed as a portal to the realm of the dead (see Od. 24.14, Frame 1978.92-93, and Nagy 1990a.225‐ 26). The Catalogue ( Il. 5.381-97) refers to Heracles' cattle raid retold by Nestor of Pylos ( Il. 11.671-761). Heracles' wounding of Hera and Hades suggests an early story of the hero storming the Gate of the Underworld, perhaps parallel to the tale of his birth at Argos. (If Argos meant "realm of light" [Clader 1976.56ff.] and Pylos "the gate of death," Hera's control over his birth at Argos may have been prelude to a tale of his death at Pylos.) Hera's "incurable" (ἀνἠκεστoν 5.394) breast wound inflicted by his arrow justifies her subsequent tormenting of the hero and explains why her breast will be "cured" (έξακἐσαιo 4.36) only in the "raw-eating" of all Troy (see Chap. 4). The recurrence of the rare verb exakesthai 'to cure' used of Hera's breast in two Iliadic contexts (anêkeston 5.394 and exakesaio 4.36) suggests that the breast wound reflects an early Troy tale. On Mycenaean allusions in these stories see below.

33.West 1966.417. Nagy, by contrast, suggested to me that the Iliad simply ignores the idea of Heracles' immortalization.

34.Conversing with Hera ( Il. 16.431-68), Zeus weighs whether to keep Sarpedon alive or to "tame" him beneath the hands of Patroklos. In a rare act of obedience to Hera (458), he elects to "send Death and sweet Sleep to carry him" home toLykia for proper burial and the immortality of cult (16.454). She argues against exempting Sarpedon from death because of the precedent it would set (14.446-47). The epiphany of the birdlike twins, Death and Sleep, is almost certainly borrowed from Heraian cult, since the epic's only other such epiphanies feature Hera soaring with either Sleep (14.283-86) or Athena (5.745-79). It may be significant, therefore, that the heroes of the Golden Age died as if "tamed by sleep" (Hesiod Works and Days116; see Nagy 1990a.134).

35.Il. 18.185; cf. 18.165-68. The rare hupsizugos, used only of Zeus, is often translated "enthroned on high," but its present context suggests a spouse "yoked aloft" (at home or on Ida).

36.By juxtaposing these verses in which Hera forces an "unwilling" sun god to set (18.239-42) with a parallel passage (8.484-88), one sees that Panhellenic Homer is probably recasting earlier scenes in which the earth goddess Heraexerted power over the action of the sun god. Book 8 needs an ineffectual Hera. Hence she does nothing despite a triple supplication of the Achaeans (τρίλλιστoς 8.488), as the sunset draws a veil over earth and Night "happily" rises. In a more sympathetic context, Hera presumably would have answered her followers' triple supplication with an early nightfall, "drawing black night like a veil over her grain-giving earth" (ἔλκτoν νύκτα μέλαιναν ἐπὶ ζείδωρoν ἄρoυραν 8.486). The unique trillistos and image of an earth goddess drawing her veil over the earth apparently derive from early Heraian ritual.

37.The talking river appears in the theomachy of Iliad21, when Hera's fury and Hephaistos' fire finally tame the river god: "But when the anger of Xanthos was tamed, the adversaries ceased. For Hera, despite her wrath, stayed them" (αύτὰρ ἐπεἰ Ξάνθoιo δἀμη μένoς, oἱ μὲν ἔπειτα / παυσάσθην· "Hρη γὰρ ἐρύκακε χωoμένη περ Il. 21.383-84). Hephaistos' firestorm against the river is not stayed until her roar for a ceasefire. The passage would have made a fitting finale to an Argolic theomachy in which the earth goddess and her fiery son ( Typhon?) triumph over the river god (Chap. 4.B).

38.For the description of Achilles' horses see 16.145-54 and for Hera's see 5.768-72; 15.15.79-86; cf. 14.225 = 19.114.

39.See Chap. 6.C for Pherecydes' and Callimachus' references to Hera at a leimôn 'meadow' near Okeanos. On the Snatcher-Harpy see Nagy 1990a.243‐ 245. In a 1992 article that arrived when this study was already in press, Johnston provides evidence that Hera of early myth bestowed talking horses on favored warriors and was linked to Poseidon as spouse and to the horse Xanthos, perhaps as mother. From fragments of Alcman and Stesichorus, she notes a tradition in which Hera gives Kastor a Xanthos who speaks to him, as Iliadic Xanthos speaks to Achilles (86, n. 3).

#😎✨✨✨ lizzy explains it all ( hellenic polytheism research.)#📑 ███ bookcase ( the transformation of hera.)#RESEARCH TAG TBD.#ILIAD TAG TBD.

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supertrendingnewsarticles · 5 years

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First he ordered the detention of at least four senior members of his own royal family. The next day he plunged Saudi Arabia into a price war with Russia that sent energy and stock markets around the world into free fall.For a while, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia had appeared to be living down his reputation for dangerous aggression.Perhaps chastened by the blowback over his connection with the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the 34-year-old crown prince had kept a low profile for more than a year.Now his new power plays are reviving debates in Western capitals about whether he is too rash to trust as a partner. His sudden, steep cut to the price of oil has rocked a global economy already at risk of falling into recession, threatened to burn through Saudi Arabia's cash reserves and undermined his grandiose promises of new investments to lessen the kingdom's dependence on oil."It is mutually assured destruction for any oil exporting economy, certainly including Saudi Arabia and Russia and probably the United States as well," said Greg Brew, a scholar of the region and a fellow at Southern Methodist University."But this is typical MBS, right?" he added, referring to the crown prince by his initials. "He is a risk taker, and he is prone to impulsive decisions."The detention of the senior royals, which began to leak out on Friday, has not been acknowledged or explained by the Saudi officials.Two of the detained princes -- Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, the younger brother of the crown prince's aging father, King Salman, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the former crown prince and interior minister -- had once been seen as possible rivals for power. Their arrests stirred anxious speculation among cowed members of the royal family that Crown Prince Mohammed might be sidelining opponents in preparation for taking the throne from his father, who is 84 and has sometimes appeared forgetful or disoriented.People close to the royal court, though, insisted the crown prince had merely lashed out at his uncle and cousins for speaking critically about him. He wanted to teach the rest of the family a lesson."It was quiet for a while and people were wondering if MBS had mellowed," Steffen Hertog, a scholar at the London School of Economics, said. "But clearly his character is pretty persistent."Crown Prince Mohammed slashed the oil price to punish Russia, which he faulted for failing to cooperate in cutting production and propping up prices. The slowdown caused by the coronavirus was already reducing demand for oil."The Russians called their bluff, and now the Saudis are trying to demonstrate to the Russians what the cost is of a lack of cooperation," Hertog said. But for Saudi Arabia, "it is a risky game of chicken."Saudi Arabia has much more to lose than Russia. Russia has more diverse sources of revenue and it has built up its reserves since the last oil price downturn.Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, remains overwhelmingly dependent on oil. What's more, its cash reserves have remained flat for about four years at around $500 billion, down from a peak of about $740 billion in the summer of 2014.Analysts say that the kingdom needs a so-called break-even price of about $80 a barrel to meet its budget without either further drawing down those reserves or adopting painful austerity measures. But the price on Monday fell to about $35 a barrel, less than half the break-even price.A downturn of as much as two years could cut into those reserves severely enough to put pressure on the Saudi exchange rate as well as the plans to diversify the economy, Hertog said.The crown prince's economic plan for the country centered on a public offering of shares in the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, to raise money to invest in other sectors. But plans for a debut on a major international market were pulled in favor of the more lax Saudi domestic exchange, and over the last two days the oil price cut has sent shares tumbling by 20%, shaving $320 billion off the value of the company.The timing of the price war so soon after the roundup of his royal relatives on Friday has aroused speculation that the crown prince sought to contain potential opponents in anticipation of trouble. Perhaps he wanted to preempt any foes before economic pain from the downturn made him politically vulnerable, some suggested."The threat to MBS is not coming from his royal rivals," argued Kristin Smith Diwan, a scholar at the Gulf States Institute in Washington. "It is coming from the collapse in oil revenues and what that does to his ambitious economic plans."But other analysts, former diplomats and officials with experience in Saudi Arabia, and Saudis close to the royal court said that Crown Prince Mohammed had consolidated power so thoroughly that he had little left to fear.With a level of ruthlessness unprecedented in modern Saudi history, the crown prince has seized more direct power over the kingdom than any monarch in decades, largely by intimidating into submission his own sprawling ruling family. Even in a severe downturn, the members of the royal family he detained had little hope of challenging him.He had already put the same royals under tight surveillance, limiting their ability to plot against him, according to people close to the royal court.A spokesman for the Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.The most senior figure detained, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, more than 70 years old, had once been recorded in London making comments distancing himself from the crown prince's policies but had since appeared submissive, at least in public.The other prominent royal detained, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, had already been under house arrest since 2017, when he was removed from his posts as crown prince and interior minister by the current crown prince.Previous Saudi rulers might have provided some advance warning to Washington and London before such high profile detentions, former diplomats said. Crown Prince Mohammed had met in Riyadh last week with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of Britain and last month with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.Yet the crown prince gave no indication that the arrests were imminent, according to diplomats and other officials with knowledge of the matter.Western officials worry about the "reputational risk" of associating with such an unpredictable leader, said Emile Hokayem, a scholar at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. But so far Crown Prince Mohammed has faced few adverse consequences.He has led a five-year military intervention in Yemen that has produced a humanitarian catastrophe. He rounded up hundreds of his royal relatives and other wealthy Saudis in a Ritz Carlton hotel in 2017 to squeeze them for repayment of what he claimed was self enrichment. He even temporarily kidnapped the prime minister of Lebanon and forced him to announce a resignation (which the prime minister later retracted).American intelligence agencies concluded that in 2018 Crown Prince Mohammed ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist who lived in Virginia.Since then, some analysts have seen signs of maturation, in particular his pulling back from a potential armed clash with his nemesis, Iran, last year. At a meeting last summer in Japan of the leaders of the world's 20 largest economies, Crown Prince Mohammed was welcomed as a fellow statesman and tapped to host the group's next summit this fall in Riyadh.President Donald Trump called him "a friend of mine.""You have done a spectacular job," the president told him.And when the crown prince shook world markets on Monday, Trump emphasized the positive."Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!" he said in a Twitter posting.Andrew Miller, a researcher for the Project on Middle East Democracy and a former State Department official, said the detentions and price war were "just MBS.""Contrary to what many had said previously, he has not learned any lessons and he has not matured," Miller said. "He has drawn the opposite lessons, that he is above the law, because Saudi Arabia is so important to its Western allies that he will always be welcomed back into the fold."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

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Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

My most useful article for Seeking Alpha – personal opinion – was this one published on March 20, 2017. It provided a simple model and a not so simple model for deploying cash during corrections. The idea was to have a firm but slightly flexible plan and to help provide an investor with the necessary steel to take action amidst market chaos. I happened to write the article while eating a messy Jimmy John’s sandwich. That sandwich served as the governing metaphor for the messiness of action taken while trying to take the right action. Military training is another good metaphor. Regular drill was developed in the 18th century to get soldiers to do what they needed to do routinely even in the midst of chaos and fear.

The secret to investing is to have a plan and stick to it. If this approach interests you, you may wish to go back and read that earlier piece. It was written for SA readers to suggest a sort of drill. We are now in the middle of a firefight, and we have only sketchy ideas of what we are up against and what is happening on our flanks. What this article is going to do is present a brief outline for the plan I use for myself and explain how I have implemented it so far.

What We Know And What We Don’t Know

The most important thing to start with is what we know and what we don’t know. What we know is less than many pundits appear to think. What we don’t know includes many things that we would like to know but don’t. The key thing is to resist persuading ourselves that we have the answers. I don’t think I could put it better than I did in that March 2017 article, so I will take the liberty of quoting myself:

The one thing we know with certainty is that a correction is coming. What we don’t know is when it is coming. It may come in May. It may come in September. It may have started a couple of weeks ago. It may not come until 2018. Success in predicting the arrival of corrections is pretty much random, which means somebody will have gotten it right after the fact, but who? … So we don’t know when the next correction is coming, or whether we are already in it.

Here are some of the other things we don’t know:

We have no idea why the next correction will happen. We certainly have no idea of the proximate cause – maybe a butterfly beating its wings funny in New Zealand.

We have no idea how big the drawdown will prove to be. This unknown is important, and requires careful attention in making a plan.

We don’t know if the next drawdown will be associated with a recession or with some sort of unexpected shock, or if it will just be a correction in price and valuation. The 1987 Crash did not come with either a shock or a recession. There were investigations, mostly centered on “portfolio insurance,” but then-president Reagan probably nailed it in real time, saying “Maybe prices were too high.” The similar Crash of 1929 was followed by the worst decade in U.S. economic and market history.

We do know a few things that don’t help as much as we think.

We know that 10% corrections happen all the time, about one a year, but corrections of 30% or more happen only once, sometimes twice, per decade. The trouble is that every 30% correction starts as a 10% correction. When the market reaches a 10% decline, we can’t know for sure which we are dealing with.

Accepting the things that we do not know and the limited value of the things we do know is the beginning of wisdom. It’s the basic starting point in constructing a plan of action.

That’s how I saw it then. That’s how I see it now. The difference is that as of Christmas Eve, we got close enough in the S&P 500 to call it a 20% correction. In media language that’s a bear market. We are now surrounded by the clamor and confusion of a firefight. It’s time for the preparation to kick in. Put a clip into your M16 and be sure that it clicks in firmly. Get a good spot weld on your right cheek. Take a deep breath and let half of it out. Pick a target and squeeze, don’t jerk, the trigger. If you have practiced it, it’s automatic.

The best plans for buying market drawdowns work that way. The decision is taken out of your shaky hands. It’s automatic. After describing a couple of basic plans, I’ll explain what I did.

Two Simple Approaches That Are Easy To Execute

The simplest approach to buying dips is the oldest one: simply rebalance your portfolio at intervals. The presumption is that you have a set target allocation for stocks which you intend to keep in place over a fairly long period, such as, perhaps, a decade. The only real task is deciding what the interval should be. It might be once or twice a year, or perhaps quarterly. This approach won’t shoot the lights out, but it is likely to improve your risk-adjusted returns over a full market cycle. Vanguard may even do the rebalancing for you.

For those who sometimes hold quite a bit of cash reserved for future investment – as I have done in recent years – you will need to make the adjustments yourself. The simplest approach may be to deploy cash mechanically as a decline hits certain predetermined levels.

Small corrections (5 or 10%) happen frequently, and I rarely buy a dip of that scale. I remind myself that if I was content with my allocation when the market was 10% lower, then I have no reason to raise it after a 10% decline. It is harder to ignore a decline that meets the criterion for a cyclical bear market. The most commonly used measure is a decline of 20%. A decline of 30% is also a cyclical bear, though somewhat deeper.

Declines in the area of 40-50% are quite rare indeed, although we experienced two of them in the decade following the year 2000. The only other time two such declines occurred within a single decade was during the 1930s. I’m sure many readers are old enough to have experienced both the 2000-2004 and 2007-2009 declines. Those of you now retired or nearing retirement will certainly never forget them. Most readers will live to experience a number of cyclical bears (20-30% declines) in the course of an investing lifetime.

A good plan has to address these facts, letting you invest part of your reserve during modest declines while leaving cash to deploy in case a decline continues to the next threshold. Having that in mind, I propose the following simple and straightforward program.

Market down 20%: Use 25% of available cash.

Market down 30%: Use another 25%.

Market down 40%: Use another 25%.

Market down 50%: Use the final 25% and go “all-in.”

Measure the degree of decline from the top. Do a quick calculation, and then just do it. If you just buy more of what you have, whether an index or individual stocks, you will find that you have added at a favorable cost. If the correction stops around 20%, once the market completes the round trip to the former top, instead of being back to your original value, your portfolio will be 2.5% higher.

If the market goes down the full 50%? When the market completes the round trip to the prior high, you will be up about 17.6%. Plus any dividends, of course.

In the United States the market has always returned to the former high and ultimately surpassed it. The longest period it took was the 25 years from 1929 to 1954, and the high rate of dividend yields in the deflationary 1930s meant that investors still did fairly well. The lesson investors should really take from the 1929 Crash is that it’s not a bad idea to hold some cash and bonds.

The good thing about this kind of averaging is that you have a plan and it is mechanical. It will calm your nerves and get you to take the right action in a crisis. More important, it will help you avoid taking the wrong action. That being said, I believe there is a better approach for the more aggressive investor.

Buffett Rebalancing

The idea of “Buffett Rebalancing” came to me from studying what Buffett has done under the variety of market conditions over his long career. In the early days he simply got out pretty much entirely when the market seemed to him absurdly overpriced. He did this in May 1969 when he closed down his partnership and explained his reasons this way. He then watched the market collapse in stages into the middle 1970s. At that point he began to buy heavily and gave all who would listen a heads-up in this famous 1974 Forbes profile.

Was Buffett then a market timer? It’s a bit of a gray area. He has made a few of the most amazingly accurate market calls ever. What’s important to remember is that his decisions in 1969 and 1974 were driven by valuation rather than by any system designed to catch market tops and bottoms. He sold when it made sense and bought when it made sense. It was the same at the 2000 and 2007 tops and at the 2008-9 bottom, for which he wrote this famous op-ed piece in the New York Times.

You and I are probably not going call market tops and bottoms with Buffett’s precision. Buffett himself doesn’t quite do it that way any more. With funds to invest that have grown to exceed $100 billion, he now tends to find things to invest in on a modest scale even when overall market prices look rather high. One can’t help noticing, however, that large acquisitions – the form of investing he now prefers – have not happened in the last few years. It will be interesting to watch what he does if the present bear market continues after a pause.

The idea of buying a little bit in response to modest opportunities while using a more aggressive approach near major market bottoms suggested a plan which I labelled “Buffett Rebalancing” in that March 2017 article. It describes what I actually attempt to do. Here’s how I put it then:

If you invest heavily in the early stages of a market decline, you have lost the bet, in a way. This can be avoided if you reserve enough cash to double down at the next level down, if the market continues to fall. That’s more or less what Buffett has done over the long term. He continuously puts money into stock purchases and acquisitions – more regularly now than he used to – but he still tries to go in much bigger when the market is down heavily. Recall his deals of 2008-2010. His frequent quote on his frame of mind at moments like this is that he feels like an oversexed man in a harem.

Here’s an outline for a buying program which increases the amount invested at each successive level.

Market down 10% or less: I generally sit tight.

Market down 20%: Use 20% of your cash reserve. Statistically, a 20% decline is about what you get on a regular basis.

Market down 30%: Use an additional 25% of your original cash amount. At this point, you will have deployed 45% of original cash available, over half of it near the bottom of a significant correction.

Market down around 40%: Use an additional 30% of your original cash. At this point, you will have deployed 75% of original cash available, 30% of it at the low point of a major down move.

Market down 50%: Use the last 25% of your original cash position and go “all-in – 100% invested.” This won’t happen very often. If the market continues to decline, turn off the TV and stop looking at brokerage statements. Tell yourself that you will look brilliant in the long run. If you’re nervous, buy canned goods and set up a cot in your basement.

This is actually a rather conservative modification of the simple plan. You can massage the numbers as you see fit. The plan I carry in my head is a little fuzzy around the edges and is weighted more heavily toward trying to buy aggressively after major declines. Nevertheless I don’t allow myself to pass on buying at the 20% hurdle. This was the sort of “Buffett Rebalancing” rule that I applied on Christmas Eve when the market took one more tumble and reached the 20% threshold. What surprised me was that I ended up adding to an already very large position in Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)(BRK.B).

What To Buy

Life is simple if you are an index investor but a lot more complicated if you own mainly individual stocks so that your portfolio is the product of many past decisions. It’s a matter of choosing whatever action makes your portfolio better. There are several ways to look at it. Borrowing again from that March 20, 2017 article, I will try to cover a few of the major possibilities:

Simply buy more of what you have. My portfolio is highly concentrated, and an advisor who put an investor as heavily into Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) as I already am would probably get sued. As much as I love it, I can’t buy more. I wrote these words in 2017. Ha! Famous last words!

Buy exactly what you don’t have, in order to diversify. This is the only good way to diversify away from a high level of concentration. That was the “Buffett Rebalancing” trick used by Buffett himself when he bought Gen Re for its bond portfolio. He did the same thing in reducing the importance of his consumer staples stocks by buying industrials like BNSF and Lubrizol. On the night of December 23, I thought seriously about buying Abbvie (ABBV).

Buy things you have wanted to buy at the right price. Back in 2017 I cited Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) as a possibility if its valuation crept down toward a range reasonable for high-growth companies. Its PE has crept down a bit, and is closer to my fuzzy buy point. Two lines still have to cross where a cheaper PE intersects my limited ability to predict its future.

With the market down 40-50%, I would look carefully at index funds. They currently don’t work for me because cap-weighted indexes are more concentrated in high-flyers than I am comfortable with, but if a correction squeezed market P/Es toward the center – reduced dispersion, as they say – I would look at an S&P index vehicle (NYSEARCA:SPY) or maybe the Vanguard total market index (VTI). Not yet, however. The market would need to be flat on its back.

If stocks drop because of a massacre in bonds, a comparison with longer duration fixed income might suggest serious competition for stocks. I thought I would never say those words, but guess what? My first action, in early December, was exactly that. I wrote about it here and in my 2019 positioning piece.

To my own astonishment, my first reaction to the market correction was to assemble something resembling a conventional bond portfolio. I did this between December 4 and December 10, buying CDs in a ladder of sorts stretching out to 5 years and Vanguard’s long term muni fund (VWLUX). An unexpected drop in yields across the entire Treasury yield curve persuaded me that the credit cycle might be turning. I decided to extend maturities and lock in present rates. I nevertheless chose vehicles that might do pretty well even if rates picked up again and the curve steepened moderately. I also chose vehicles which could be exited without too much inconvenience if the market fell far enough that I wanted to be 90% in stocks.

That left one decision: which stock or stocks to buy on Christmas Eve.

Why I Chose Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)(BRK.B)

There was a certain inevitability about Berkshire despite the fact that my position was heavily overweight already. It’s the company and stock I know best, having owned a position of increasing size since the 1990s. I’ve kept up with Berkshire closely enough to produce three or four SA articles per year about some aspect of it. Berkshire is also internally diversified. You can’t worry about being overweight an index fund. Berkshire isn’t quite an index fund, but it’s diversified enough for my purposes. The parts of the market it doesn’t own are generally the parts of the market I don’t want to own either.

The risk/reward of Berkshire is asymmetrical, with downside somewhat limited by its buyback policy, its cash position, and the conservative principles on which it is built. Its business value is somewhat hard to understand – you’ll know this if you have read SA writers who propose many different ways of valuing it. I believe I know enough to feel that it is significantly undervalued. Whitney Tilson’s method of estimating its value is probably the closest to mine. Summing it up, I feel that I know Berkshire better than I know any of the other nine companies in my portfolio. Some probably have more upside, but I feel less able to estimate their risk. My best estimate for Berkshire is that it will decline if the market continues to drop, but perhaps somewhat less than the market from this point on.

When buying the first 20% drop, the appropriate thing is to make a conservative buy in something you really understand at a price you will feel good about even if the market heads down another step or two. For me that was Berkshire. I bought at 189. That’s a price I will be comfortable with as a long term buying point.

Conclusion

At present, that Berkshire buy at 189 would look pretty good to a trader as Berkshire was up every day for the rest of the week and ended up more than 5% higher. Am I gloating? Not at all. Am I patting myself on the back? No to that too. That ten point bounce in Berk is actually pretty much meaningless. It could give it back in a week. If the December 24 smack-up proves to be the bottom of this downturn, it will have been a very lucky buy. The truth is that I have no way of knowing where this decline will stop. It remains firmly in the category of things that are impossible to know.

The day after Christmas looked a bit like a relief rally to me. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the market needs to minimally gather itself and consolidate the snap-back gains and then have a follow through day within a day or two on very heavy volume. After that it could easily rally for a while and then test the lows on lower volume and momentum. It could just as easily turn around and head back down 30-40%. Who knows? Not me, certainly.

I do give myself a modest pat on the back for one thing. I had a plan. I followed it.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BRK.B, VWLUX. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat · 6 years

Text

Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

New Post has been published on http://hosting-df.net/having-a-plan-and-sticking-to-it-why-buffett-rebalancing-made-me-buy-berkshire-on-dec-24/

Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Here are some of the other things we don’t know:

We have no idea why the next correction will happen. We certainly have no idea of the proximate cause – maybe a butterfly beating its wings funny in New Zealand.

We have no idea how big the drawdown will prove to be. This unknown is important, and requires careful attention in making a plan.

We do know a few things that don’t help as much as we think.

Accepting the things that we do not know and the limited value of the things we do know is the beginning of wisdom. It’s the basic starting point in constructing a plan of action.

The best plans for buying market drawdowns work that way. The decision is taken out of your shaky hands. It’s automatic. After describing a couple of basic plans, I’ll explain what I did.

Two Simple Approaches That Are Easy To Execute

Market down 20%: Use 25% of available cash.

Market down 30%: Use another 25%.

Market down 40%: Use another 25%.

Market down 50%: Use the final 25% and go “all-in.”

If the market goes down the full 50%? When the market completes the round trip to the prior high, you will be up about 17.6%. Plus any dividends, of course.

Buffett Rebalancing

Here’s an outline for a buying program which increases the amount invested at each successive level.

Market down 10% or less: I generally sit tight.

Market down 20%: Use 20% of your cash reserve. Statistically, a 20% decline is about what you get on a regular basis.

Market down 30%: Use an additional 25% of your original cash amount. At this point, you will have deployed 45% of original cash available, over half of it near the bottom of a significant correction.

Market down around 40%: Use an additional 30% of your original cash. At this point, you will have deployed 75% of original cash available, 30% of it at the low point of a major down move.

What To Buy

That left one decision: which stock or stocks to buy on Christmas Eve.

Why I Chose Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)(BRK.B)

Conclusion

I do give myself a modest pat on the back for one thing. I had a plan. I followed it.

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lazilysillyprince · 6 years

Text

Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

New Post has been published on http://hosting-df.net/having-a-plan-and-sticking-to-it-why-buffett-rebalancing-made-me-buy-berkshire-on-dec-24/

Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Here are some of the other things we don’t know:

We have no idea why the next correction will happen. We certainly have no idea of the proximate cause – maybe a butterfly beating its wings funny in New Zealand.

We have no idea how big the drawdown will prove to be. This unknown is important, and requires careful attention in making a plan.

We do know a few things that don’t help as much as we think.

Accepting the things that we do not know and the limited value of the things we do know is the beginning of wisdom. It’s the basic starting point in constructing a plan of action.

The best plans for buying market drawdowns work that way. The decision is taken out of your shaky hands. It’s automatic. After describing a couple of basic plans, I’ll explain what I did.

Two Simple Approaches That Are Easy To Execute

Market down 20%: Use 25% of available cash.

Market down 30%: Use another 25%.

Market down 40%: Use another 25%.

Market down 50%: Use the final 25% and go “all-in.”

If the market goes down the full 50%? When the market completes the round trip to the prior high, you will be up about 17.6%. Plus any dividends, of course.

Buffett Rebalancing

Here’s an outline for a buying program which increases the amount invested at each successive level.

Market down 10% or less: I generally sit tight.

Market down 20%: Use 20% of your cash reserve. Statistically, a 20% decline is about what you get on a regular basis.

Market down 30%: Use an additional 25% of your original cash amount. At this point, you will have deployed 45% of original cash available, over half of it near the bottom of a significant correction.

Market down around 40%: Use an additional 30% of your original cash. At this point, you will have deployed 75% of original cash available, 30% of it at the low point of a major down move.

What To Buy

That left one decision: which stock or stocks to buy on Christmas Eve.

Why I Chose Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)(BRK.B)

Conclusion

I do give myself a modest pat on the back for one thing. I had a plan. I followed it.

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hostingnewsfeed · 6 years

Text

Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

New Post has been published on http://hosting-df.net/having-a-plan-and-sticking-to-it-why-buffett-rebalancing-made-me-buy-berkshire-on-dec-24/

Having A Plan And Sticking To It: Why 'Buffett Rebalancing' Made Me Buy Berkshire On Dec 24

What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Here are some of the other things we don’t know:

We have no idea why the next correction will happen. We certainly have no idea of the proximate cause – maybe a butterfly beating its wings funny in New Zealand.

We have no idea how big the drawdown will prove to be. This unknown is important, and requires careful attention in making a plan.

We do know a few things that don’t help as much as we think.

Accepting the things that we do not know and the limited value of the things we do know is the beginning of wisdom. It’s the basic starting point in constructing a plan of action.

The best plans for buying market drawdowns work that way. The decision is taken out of your shaky hands. It’s automatic. After describing a couple of basic plans, I’ll explain what I did.

Two Simple Approaches That Are Easy To Execute

Market down 20%: Use 25% of available cash.

Market down 30%: Use another 25%.

Market down 40%: Use another 25%.

Market down 50%: Use the final 25% and go “all-in.”

If the market goes down the full 50%? When the market completes the round trip to the prior high, you will be up about 17.6%. Plus any dividends, of course.

Buffett Rebalancing

Here’s an outline for a buying program which increases the amount invested at each successive level.

Market down 10% or less: I generally sit tight.

Market down 20%: Use 20% of your cash reserve. Statistically, a 20% decline is about what you get on a regular basis.

Market down 30%: Use an additional 25% of your original cash amount. At this point, you will have deployed 45% of original cash available, over half of it near the bottom of a significant correction.

Market down around 40%: Use an additional 30% of your original cash. At this point, you will have deployed 75% of original cash available, 30% of it at the low point of a major down move.

What To Buy

That left one decision: which stock or stocks to buy on Christmas Eve.

Why I Chose Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)(BRK.B)

Conclusion

I do give myself a modest pat on the back for one thing. I had a plan. I followed it.

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armsinthewronghands · 8 years

Text

Complete Text of the Get At Him Post

This post is frequently used as “evidence” I have a secret harassment group:

..also note anyone named in the comments should be able to confirm to the public the transcripts match the private post and anyone can ask to be added to the circles and confirm for themselves.

Zak Sabbath

Shared privately

Aug 04, 2014

I dunno who this fuck is but he has 15,000 followers, please get at him:

https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/496492230756954112

Gary Bernhardt (garybernhardt) on Twittertwitter.com

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Corey BrinI don't use twitter but I boosted the signal. Aug 4, 2014

David BlackGet at him?Hide this commentAug 4, 2014

Corey Brin+David Eglinton hit him up? Correct him? Eat him?Aug 4, 2014

Zak Sabbath+2get on twitter. tweet at him, ask questions, give links. I have a girlfirend in the hospital and 111 trolls to deal with please just either help or don't but pls no silly nerd questions.Aug 4, 2014

David Black"Silly nerd questions" please tell me what's silly about asking for clarification on an ambiguous statement "Get at him" can mean a lot if things, to different people depending on where you live. In the UK (or my area of it) "get at him" does NOT mean send him some tweets, ask him some questions. It's the equivalent of saying "get 'em boys!"Hide this commentAug 4, 2014

Zak Sabbathassume the meaning most consistent with everything I've said up until nowAug 4, 2014

David BlackAssumptions are bad, literal meaning - especially when you can talk direct to an author of words, is far superior.Hide this commentAug 5, 2014

Zak Sabbathi just do not have the patience this evening--if you don't understand it, just ignore the post, DavidAug 5, 2014

David BlackThat's ok, get back to me when you have more headspace.Hide this commentAug 5, 2014

David BlackI'm always excellent to others, that's a given. But no assumptions I'm afraid, zaks a literal guy - he says what he means, so hence the need for clarification. We haven't covered why that's silly, but he's got a lot on his plate and I'm cool with picking it up at a later date.Hide this commentAug 5, 2014

Zak SabbathSee these people? Do what they are doing: https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/496492230756954112 or don'tAug 5, 2014

Alex OsiasAs of 11 minutes ago, he took notice: "@cwlcks why did you just cc random people I've never heard of who then called me a moron and linkspammed me?"Aug 5, 2014

Zak SabbathThanks for the update, +Alexander Osias It's really appreciated that we're not handling this bullshit all alone. Got a lot going on right now.Aug 5, 2014

Jeremy FriesenHe is a well known software developer in the open source python and ruby community. He runs DestroyAllSoftware.Aug 5, 2014

Zak Sabbath+1I dunno what any of that meansAug 5, 2014

David BlackPython and Ruby are programming languages.Hide this commentAug 5, 2014

Viktor Haag+1And, based on his talks I've seen, he seems witty, very sharp, and also perhaps a bit left leaning or socially conscious. He might also not react well to what's just happened and very well see it as being virtually leapt upon. I'm not saying he's right, because I think he fell into a pothole and then posted perhaps without due diligence. However, I also think that having a bunch of people suddenly show up in his twitter feed to throw links at him, throw some insults at him, and demand retractions might well provoke a reaction from him you don't want. Partly, because, on the surface, this may seem to confirm the tone of the original piece he's read and not counter it. Is there a better way here?Aug 5, 2014

Jeremy FriesenDestroyAllSoftware.com is/was a subscription based education site. He recorded several hundred 15 minute or so segments. It was popular and I subscribed for a bit. I am not aware of Gary's direct contributions to any ruby or python projects but his screencasts were influential. Ruby and Python are two different programming languages popular in web application development. Both communities are similar in composition to gaming: lots of white guys being one common aspect.Aug 5, 2014

Nate Lumpkin+1+Viktor Haag I don't know man, if anything all these people offering him unsolicited links are doing him a favor by doing the hard work for him. Which he's apparently too stupid or lazy to do himself before endorsing libel to thousands of people.Aug 5, 2014

Jeremy Friesen+1I informed him that the post was a bunch of half truths and asked if he would like rebuttal links. Waiting. He gets a lot of tweets so I will follow up later today.Aug 5, 2014

Zak Sabbath+Viktor Haag Then do the better thing.Aug 5, 2014

David Pretty+2We don't have to be insulting. I just wrote..."@garybernhardt This article is a poisonous house of cards and shouldn't be propagated without a dollop of truth. https://plus.google.com/113806813961952334299/posts/bqmKQrjTS6f"Aug 5, 2014

Viktor Haag+1+Nate Lumpkin Everyone falls into potholes on the internet. We have no clue how tapped in to the hobby he is. He's never appeared in G+ in any of the RPG circles I've seen, I've never seen him on Storygames or rpgnet. Literally 90% of my regular gaming groups would not have had any clue about this issue if I hadn't told them (or would have come to it much later), because despite connecting some people together alarmingly well, the web doesn't connect everyone to everything. I think Gary certainly should be responsible, look more deeply, and then offer an apology or retraction, or at least delete his original tweet. But it's entirely possible he came to this from an entirely different corner of the world, read it not because he's passionate about RPGs, but because he's passionate about other things (diversity?), opened the door, and then had the inhabitants suddenly rush the doorway, throwing links and words at him. All I'm wondering is if there isn't a better way to deal with when this kind of thing happens than rushing the door, that's all. Perhaps there isn't, because that's just how the internet works. Fair enough. Aug 5, 2014

Nate Lumpkin+2+Viktor Haag I suppose that my point is that this issue isn't about being tapped into the hobby. You don't need to be tapped deeply into anything to read the Fail Forward article and tell that something is very wrong with it. It's riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes and logical errors from top to bottom. On top of that, the writer of the article is making serious real-world accusations without providing evidence or links to evidence. It's a mark of real thoughtlessness to reshare this piece. And indeed this Gary person was caught in his thoughtlessness: when the tweet was copied to Zak and Mandy, his response was "Why did you just cc random people I've never heard of?" If he's someone who doesn't read links or words (which is what appears to be the case), then all these people talking to him will be alarming, and he'll panic, and out himself as a fool. Which is what just happened, incidentally. But if he does read links and words, then no harm is done, and he gets smarter. But if you can find a better way then by all means.Aug 5, 2014

Jeremy FriesenI reached out to the two retweeters as I did with Gary. I offered to provide rebuttal links.Aug 5, 2014

Viktor Haag+1+Nate Lumpkin you make some excellent points. Thank you for making them. +Zak Smith you are correct, and in retrospect, given what Bernhardt did, and what you and +Mandy Morbid did, and what ended up happening with the rest of the replies to his tweet, I particularly here have not much of a leg to stand on at all. I apologize to you and Mandy for thinking I did. My default stance is not to escalate or confront, even when that might be the only thing needed, wanted, or warranted.Aug 5, 2014

Viktor Haag+1+David Pretty You have a point; and I will note that a large number of replies on the thread are more neutral in tone than they could have been (and often are in other places on the internetz). In other words, despite my knee-jerk reactions, this twitter thread seems to actually be in direct opposition to my fears: it actually is remarkably neutral and compassionate, all things considered (at least, it was the last time I checked).Aug 5, 2014

Jeremy FriesenGiven that Gary has not tweeted in 4 hours. It is possible he was asking for a stop on tweets so he could pursue more information. He is a voracious learner.Aug 5, 2014

Kat Fisher+1I was a bit late to the party, but I linked him to the thing I wrote last week or so with all the links in. You've got support here, especially now while you've got more important things to worry about than asshats on the internet. Aug 5, 2014

Corey Brin+Jeremy Friesen or his head exploded.Aug 5, 2014

Ramanan SThat tweet doesn't exist anymore.Aug 5, 2014

Zak Sabbath+1Well that's nice--though the damage done by a tweet is in the first few minutes it's up and shld be fixed by a public apology.Aug 5, 2014

Ramanan S+1Yeah, seems a bit obnoxious to just quietly remove it. Is that ever really face-saving? Also I have learned we have 7 followers in common on Twitter. The internet is a small world.Aug 5, 2014

Zak Sabbathprobably all D&D peopleAug 5, 2014

Ramanan SNah, they're all programmers. I wonder how he ended up stumbling on that article in the first place. Aug 5, 2014

Ramanan SOh wait, this guy did the WAT talk. How can he be bad? I don't even know what to believe anymore. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/watAug 5, 2014

Viktor HaagHis other freely available talks (especially the one on boundaries) seem to point to him not being a schnook. Still, one never knows, I guess.Aug 5, 2014

Zak Sabbath+1Attention and sorry to bother you This is an olllllld historical footnote for Non- DIY D&D regulars +Cam Banks +Sage LaTorra +Vincent Baker +Paul Czege. This is probably not important and requires no response from you, but: In case you didn't know, you are in (and have always been in ) the "secret inner G+ circle" where the conspiracy theories claims I posted this and other instructions to harass people... (like here http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3681296&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=10#post438951696 ) So if you ever hear any of your friends repeating the idea that I have a secret RPG circle where I tell people to harass my foes, you can just click over and see it and the entire contents of my Evil Empire right there in your feed. This is the same circle where my alleged "harassment list" is https://plus.google.com/u/0/110352289066114829231/posts/Vb1R7kenYxc and the place where I posted a metafilter link with just the word "destroy" https://plus.google.com/u/0/110352289066114829231/posts/AXqgBVpGoqV Alright, that's all. Again, sorry to bother you. -z

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