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At 02:44 PM 5/14/98 -0400, Walt Downs wrote:
>
>Peter wrote:
>>Walt,
>>
>>I do have respect for you based on past exchanges here on this
>>exchange. However, the sentiments exchanged here seem a bit
>>businessman vs. Lutheran.....
>
>Pete,
>
>ROFL. Lutheran .... hmmmm. My how this thread has blossomed. <g>
>So, basically what some are saying here is that its o.k. to fleece
>someone if they are too stupid to know better. This is certainly a
>practical and apparently lucrative approach. But, allow me to
>sum up some of the arguments:
>
>1. Everybody does it, so it's o.k.
>2. If people are too stupid to know better, then it's o.k.
>3. It takes advantage of people, but its not as *bad* as drugs, so it's
>o.k.
>4. What Jake did is crummy, but the guy that replaces him would only
>be worse, so it's o.k.
>5. If it hurts people, but makes an obscene amount of money, it's o.k.
>
>Wow. Then I guess it's o.k.
>
>Walt
>
>
Walt,
Your 5 points kind of do the straw man on the one side. How about a few
words for the other one. As John says in another reply, the system
seller who does not deliver something useful should be exposed. If no
one does that, should we count on some other moral sentiment within the
huckster to not take the money placed on the table in front of him?
I was not restricting my comments to Bernstein, but tried to draw a
larger circle. I also said "We might all be accused of indirectly selling
something addictive." We trade, and some, if not all of our successes
are offset by someone else's losses.
I have not heard a whisper here about "ethical investing." Certainly
we as traders believe often we are acting on better information or
something the other party does not have. It happens to be the truth
about the meats or grains or options or stocks, not Jake Bernstein's
product. Do we owe the other party more of the truth we have and they
lack before we do the trade? No, I think publicly available information
should do the trick. But again, I say like John, we should denounce a guy
like Bernstein if we believe he is delivering something worth a lot less
than he claims.
I might assert that if anyone makes an obscene amount of money (which could
include some of our trades) then someone must be getting hurt.
Hmm... I wonder where the line should be drawn. Maybe it's more of a
a Presbyterian thing like "God helps those who help themselves (the
devil take the hindmost)."
petena9090@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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