I have not made a wager using my iPhone thus far. Betting on the laptop at home keeps the pretense alive that I am making an informed judgment about a sporting event. Ha.
However, with the iPhone the world becomes my virtual casino as I can follow the results of the sporting events on which I have wagered anywhere I go. I can log into my sportsbook and see how my money is doing. (My money did not do well yesterday thanks to some trashy baseball bets I made.) Of course, I view this as a good thing while many find it deplorable or depraved. All I can say is that anyone who has the stomach to bet on the financial markets, stocks, bonds, etc., should have no qualms about throwing a few bucks down on a football game. For instance, I am watching the Man U vs. Sunderland game right now. I have Man U in a four team Premier League parlay this weekend. My guts are not churning as badly as when the stock market is open for business, and these days it’s always open for business somewhere.
The iPhone has a nice button on it to retrieve market results. With the volatility in the current market, I find myself pushing it often. That is probably not a good thing, for about the only thing you can predict about the market is that it will fluctuate as J. P. Morgan well remarked.
I sold a house recently. I should have sold it a year or two ago when house prices peaked in the neighborhood. I did manage to get out near the top. I am using the proceeds to buy property. I plan on buying a place next year somewhere in between Costa Rica and Chicago. At this time, a small condo in Las Vegas sounds intriguing. And a small place in downtown Chicago. I could jump back and forth between both places. Betting on sports in a Las Vegas casino has more cachet than betting on them in my living room while sitting around in my underwear trying to write. I figure housing prices ought to be cheaper next year with the debacle occurring in the housing market.
Selling the house was an interesting exercise. I did my own market research as the real estate agent I used was not much help in doing that. The Internet makes it easy. The Internet makes buying and selling anything easy. Whether that is good or bad depends upon the disposition of one’s assets. I plan on buying low next year when more properties, borrowers, and lenders are distressed.
Capitalism is gambling in it’s purest form. In fact, capitalism might be defined as organized gambling. Lots of folks extoll the virtues of capitalism right up until they crap out in the game. Then the government or somebody else giving them a helping hand does not sound like such a bad idea. Funny how that works. You don’t miss your water until the well runs dry.
The trick to moving to a more humane and rational economic system is finding the right changes at the right time while playing the hand you are dealt in the capitalism game. You don’t want to starve to death while waiting for the revolution with the exception of a few martyrs. I find this a brutal thing to say, yet smarter minds than mine have not found an effective long lasting cure for capitalism. Capitalism is like a swiftly mutating virus. As soon as you find a treatment, it changes into something else.
Man U and Sunderland are tied coming up to half time. Whatever, there’s plenty of good games left to follow today in which my whip out cash hangs in the balance. My anxiety and stress is not nearly as high as when following the market or selling a house.