Re: Taxes

So quick question for you: are taxes a trick?<=r> Here's what I mean, I think (gut feeling - no proof) that there are potentia=ly a number of arbitrage/risk-free opportunities that are not tackled by an=body because when you add in taxes you don't actually make money.

Is 'hacking' taxes a strategy? It seems like all the academic texts leave th=t part for the reader which makes me think there's something there.

Also I was reading a while ago that rentech was using a weird structure with=Credit Suisse (iirc) where they were taxed on their profits as if it w=s long-term capital gains instead of short-term.

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taxes are variable friciton

not sure yet

That makes sense - do y=u happen to be in town any day from today to Wednesday?

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Can you let me know if you are? I'd be=helpful if we can meet up - I'm trying to look at derivatives through my le=s.

What is somewhat striking is that it seem= like all they are is a programming language whose goal is to minimize risk= (with the side effect of creating arbitrage and speculation opportunities)=

What I am is if you interpret trading as an=optimization problem of: given a belief(stock X will outperform the market,=etc etc) maximize returns and minimize risks. Then all derivatives are is '=unctions' to go from a risky bet to a less risky one - now you can go to ri=kier ones but that's an 'anomaly'

Anyhow if t=is parallel somehow holds there are interesting questions that come up, for=example: what is a Turing machine in this world? Which would be a fancy way=to answer the questions: what derivatives are missing? Also since you can s=ack up multiple 'functions' (eg: combine a forward with an interest float-t=-fixed swap to make a riskless arbitrage) that leads to complexity and henc= to bugs

But I'm not sure if this is me goin= insane/trying to forcefully fit one thing into the other or if there's act=ally something there

One of the reason why meeting=up would be useful :-)

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