birdog1960

what I can't understand is why lipitor still has $5+billion of the statin market when there are 3 generics available in the class and a paucity of data showing any single statin to be superior. Do people just enjoy paying 10x more than they need to or are some docs really that heavily influenced by cute drug reps in tight clothes? plavix is a big deal...know plenty of people who need it but don't take it do to cost.

"Esquire" just did a little blurb on bourbon. they liked Ancient Age 10 star as a bargain bourbon...so do I. bought a 5th for $12. it's not knob creek but it's pretty damn tasty.

well played

you mean like george w bush, cheney, ailes, limbaugh and a cadre of other neo conservatives who somehow managed to avoid any actua dangerous conflict in a time when there was a draft?

what's on my mind is why you didn't play the day trading game.

lithium ion batteries are going to free us from oil dependence? the Volt can go 35 miles on a charge...impressive. and where are the solutions on the atomic level? current nuclear energy techniques haven't freed us. the world has plenty of problems that the finest scientists in the history of the world have failed to solve and really don't appear close. and the understanding of the creation of the universe is a bit more complex than these problems. but if you know different you could be rich pretty soon shorting oil stocks. maybe you should enter the day trading game.

you've got to be kidding. even the most arrogant scientist would admit that the solution to these questions are no where near being solved. hell we can't even produce man made energy much less explain the mysteries of the universe. but keep telling yourself how smart we are while we kill each other over oil because we haven't yet figured out how to make a decent battery much less do cold fusion.

couldn't view it but i expect it was about commonalities in religious "myths". this is discussed ad nauseum in any 100 level comparative religion course. so what? is it surprising that people over the ages have found similar ways to explain observed phenomena that they can't explain. some might contend that this argues for the validity of the myths. we may all be talking about the same entities but with different names. what i don't understand is how atheists explain these phenomena..what do they think of when they look at a single galaxy like andromeda millions of light years away and wonder how it and the uncounted, possibly endless other galaxies got there? or how the first bit of matter was created? or ponder the concept of infinity especially in regards to the universe and wonder how such a thing can exist. or watch a living creature die and witness an instantaneous transformation in the appearance of the now inanimate object that seems above and beyond what simple biology and physiology would predict. do they just not try or just not ever consider such things?

how many did the iraqi's? ...now the saudis....

sorry exiled, but it was a very good thing to remove (or at least markedly alter) an enemy that publicly stated its desire to bury us.( sting's "i hope the russians love their children too is replaying in my head now,thanks alot) the threat was real...we didn't need our cookies baked. do you recall the press coverage after he relinquished his nuclear program. he was made out a hero and no one, including our leaders pointed out the truth- that he is a f*&^%$#@ madman. and maybe i'm wrong but the whitehouse had to know of the lockerbie bomber deal with the brits- but not a public peep of disapproval before the deal was done. are we really that impotent?

some index funds (but not all) have penalties for trading before a set time after the initial buy. if you're buying on a regular basis, you can sell older shares without penalty. that's not an option in this game as the time period is 1 year. one also can not make a trade til after the price for the day is set (they add up the changes in holdings for the day and revalue the fund after the markets close). my move admittedly looked fishy as i had previously owned IXC, a similar energy fund to VGENX, but it's price changes in real time as it is an ETF . in real life, i could have bought IXC midday at a higher price than it opened the day. i would have had to wait to buy VGENX at the end of day price which was likely to be even higher, thus losing the days gain. however, nothing is certain. oil went way up yesterday and both IXC and VGENX were down. i thought it unlikely that would happen 2 days in a row. in fairness, i should have rebought IXC instead of VGENX ....

i don't think choosing between being gassed or bombed and strafed by jet fighters is a true choice. they're both heinous villains. the difference is that we and the brits found it convenient to support both for a time...one just longer than the other. terribly naive of me, but why not just do the moral, righteous thing on a regular basis?

when am i supposed to trade them? it was a fun experiment for a while but i'm cashing out. anyway,thanks for setting this up. last trade voided. final portfolio value =$10,495. y'all need to beat 4.95% return for the year. bar is set(pretty low).

my plan was to trade solely index funds and mostly avoid market timing to see if i could beat a majority of stock pickers as the data usually shows. that changed when it stayed a 3 horse race and the odds worsened. i asked at the outset if index funds could be used and was told yes. many have minimum investments over 10k and penalties for early sale but i took the affirmative to mean that i could trade these freely. if that assumption was incorrect i'll start again with 10k and do only ETF's.

OK Mr. Silverking...you've got the lead but there's not much more volatile than silver. probably won't hold this long but it was down yesterday and will probably be up quite a bit today...could make a 100 or 2. Vgenx was at about 115 i recall when oil hit $145. I tried to trade after hours which would be the way that one normally does this but was rebuffed by peace. i voided all trades done after hours. now i'm accused of cheating for doing what the founder of the game required. what would you have me do? see posts 5,23,24. perhaps it's you that's lusting after a kindle too much? i have one.

buying 148 shares VGENX @ 70.84 holding:148 shares VGENX @70.84 cash=$135

i've only seen this idea advanced in one other place. it's just as legitimate and defensible as the thesis advanced by the op.

class structure check out "US models".

kill some arab despots and support some others....

or maybe they got tired of being called morons or idiots or some other slanderous name in lieu of an actual argument. i wasn't here then but defending an incompetent president didn't seem to run you all off.

sure. an obscure sea battle over pirating is analogous to regime change and nation building at a cost of 10's of thousands of lives and uncounted billions of $. maybe you could cite some ancient mesopotamian conflicts to further your argument. i recently saw some great carvings about them at the british museum. fascinating. but your point is salient. the geography is what it's all about in the 20th and 21st century. the importance of the geography has nothing to do with oil.

i sure hope not...idl have to check out the folks in the pew behind me every sunday. i'm talking about the "left behind" fringe that isn't really so small...pretty good sales of those books. and while volume doesn't always equate influence, they've effectively thrown their weight around before. what makes you think foreign policy is hands off? i hope you're a better shot than she is. yum, chicken

don't forget the fundamentalist christians who believe we need to be there to fulfill prophecy...a significant and influential chunk of the current republican party

and the reason that this regions stability is deemed worth the cost paid is....oil.

everything in the middle east is ultimately about oil. if there were no oil, we would have no more military presence there than we have in sudan or haiti or any god forsaken country brutalized by an evil dictator. before oil reserves were found and exploited, the rulers of the countries we now see falling were inconsequential and mostly ignored. and they may be again if wikileaks is correct about saudi's exagerated reserves. but it was and will always be about the oil.