Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

On Corruption

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The subject of corruption has been on my mind recently, for reasons that I cannot get into and probably never will be able to articulate, but the inspiration hardly matters. If you had asked me a week ago was “corruption” meant, I would have stated roughly what most people might, which is that it has to do with things like bribing a government official. In other words, a way to bend the rules in your favor by doing something for someone else.

My notion of corruption has broadened, or at least changed, quite a lot in the past few days. Now, I think of corruption as what is going on inside a black box. In a normal system, if “A” goes into the box, and you can expect “B” to come out, then “B’ emerges. However, if “X” emerges, there’s something foul afoot inside. It isn’t operating as expected. The innards of this hypothetical box are………….corrupted. Because the outcome does not comport with the expectation.

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Porking Out

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Normally I don’t bother with the topic of so-called progressive politics, particularly as they relate to the closest big city in my area (San Francisco), but I read something so irksome I’ve just got to share it. It is a piece called The Dream Keeper which outlines in nauseating detail how the morons and thieves in charge of the fair city of San Francisco usurped $120 million in police funds into a variety of virtue-signaling garbage grift schemes. The entire impetus for doing so was immediately following the Floyd, umm, “murder“, which is an event that I sincerely believe impacted the nation negatively to the tune of trillions, yes, trillions, of dollars in societal harm.

These days, my own blend of politics are kind of homeless (although there are flickers of hope, as I’ve mentioned), but, honestly, reading this kind of article (which I encourage you to do as well) makes me wince. Since the article is excellent, I won’t butcher it with a summary, but allow me to pluck out some of the absolute nonsensical drivel that’s foisted upon us normal, non-insane people by the kinds of wingnuts that are involved in these kinds of government scams. Brace yourself…………

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Bus Stop

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Many years ago, in the early 1990s and the beginning of my company Prophet, my partner said something to me at the time that I’ll never forget. He pointed to our rack of modems and said, “This is dumb.”

I’m not exactly sure what he meant at the time, nor am I sure to this day, but I believe what he meant was that the notion of:

  1. a phone line on the customer’s end;
  2. a modem on the customer’s end
  3. a dedicated phone call (often long distance);
  4. a phone line on our end;
  5. a modem on our end

All for the purpose of establishing ONE connection was ridiculous and would be surpassed by something better one day.

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The Crucial Funds

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It should first be noted – – nay, emphasized – – that these charts and the words about them are being composed the day before the monthly CPI number is released. Although the CPI was absolutely meaningless for years and years, it has now become an even more important data point than the jobs report, since inflation data has an outsized influence on market strength or weakness. Thus, if you are reading this any time after the CPI of November 14th is released, the conclusions offered may be moot.

Having begun with that important disclaimer, I will say that the ten charts of the ETFs that follow bear an important common element: they have all moved powerfully up toward key resistance levels. In almost all these cases, the resistance is represented by a simple horizontal line (or, its equivalent, a Fibonacci level). Some prices are closer to resistance than others, but on the whole it can be said that (1) the more of these that fail to cross above these lines, the better chance bears have of seizing control of the market again; (2) the more of these lines are crossed to the upside, the higher the chance the bulls will simply continue running roughshod over the bears through at least the end of the year.

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