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Thread: How Important Is A "Profit"

  1. #21
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    I knew Frank Borman well... very well... from my years in Miami when I was with WTVJ and he was Chairman of Eastern. First professionally, and then personally. If I could have picked who I wanted to be my father I would have picked Frank Borman -- that's how much I loved him. When the LA Business Journal did a profile of me and asked me who I admired most -- I said Frank Borman. Frank Borman was robbed of greatness by the Machinists Union at Eastern Airlines. Borman -- if not for the labor strife that ultimately killed the airline (and other airlines too) -- could have gone on to a Cabinet post or even the White House. He was a national hero who literally was run into a brick wall.
    Sorry to say I had never heard of Frank Borman until you mentioned him. Even though he is old enough to be my grandfather, he does seem like an inspirational guy.

    Why is it that I've heard of spacefarers such as Neil Armstrong or Sally Ride, but not Frank Borman?

    I would suspect it has something to do with the term "Survivor Bias". One simple failure that keeps you off the front page of the news media can doom you to relative obscurity forever.

    (LINK) A Long, but Interesting Blog Article Explaining Survivorship Bias in Full with Solid Real-Life Examples

    SUPER-SIMPLE EXAMPLE OF SURVIVOR BIAS FOR THE IMPATIENT GAMBLER: My neighbor once told me an amusing truism about casino gambling, "You see all those big jackpot winners on the winners wall, but you never hear about the bankruptcies and suicides...Those just disappear.."
    That is survivor bias in a nutshell: The jackpot winners are the much-publicized "survivors" while the much bigger crowds that fail become completely invisible. You don't see giant news articles saying 200 million people bought LOSING tickets for some huge Powerball jackpot, do you?
    Last edited by Count Room; 01-08-2014 at 06:01 PM. Reason: More Thoughts

  2. #22
    I am a professional poker player, and the same survivor bias happens there.

    You hear about all of the hot players and the big tournament winners, but winners of past years are forgotten if they don't keep winning (unless they are one of a handful of household names, such as Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, or Doyle Brunson).

    People forget the poker is less than a zero sum game (since there are both expenses and house rake), so someone is obviously contributing all of the money that's being won, and a lot of it is NOT just from amateurs.

    Like at the World Series of Poker, it's easy to get jealous of the Main Event winner or the guy who won 2 bracelets, until you see the list of well-known pros who played 17 events and bricked every one of them.
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  3. #23
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    This of course is very intriguing. I love your last line: "Maybe this time you will only win $60, but next time you might win $200, so it all evens out."

    But... what if it doesn't even out?
    Doesn't have to even out exactly. If you play enough 99% VP the average return will be well over 90%. That means you can count on the $100 being no worse than $90 over the average year.

    As for Singer's continual emphasis on "envy", that is simple ... pure projection. All of his claims/lies are childish attempts to get other people to "envy" him like he envies successful people in this world such as Alan.

  4. #24
    Originally Posted by Count Room View Post

    Why is it that I've heard of spacefarers such as Neil Armstrong or Sally Ride, but not Frank Borman?
    Borman was in the second group of NASA astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, Jim McDivitt, Jim Lovell, Elliot See, Tom Stafford, Ed White and John Young.

    Of course we remember Neil Armstrong for being the first to walk on the moon, and Sally Ride tragically died -- the school teach going to space.

    Frank Borman was famous for orbiting the moon and on live TV read from the Bible. As Chairman of Eastern he was famous for appearing in the company's TV commercials.

    There are dozens of other astronauts with names we would not recognize.

  5. #25
    When we were kids, Alan, astronauts and test pilots were heroes and we admired the technology of flight. Flying, even commercially, was inspiring. You could point to these guys and they were doing a combination of things physically and mentally that the average person just couldn't do. We don't really have that kind of top-of-the-heap high-profile hero today. We can try to make heroes out of Navy SEALS and Rangers and such, but it's not nearly the same.

    I had every one of those Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo model kits as a kid and watched every broadcast.
    Last edited by redietz; 01-08-2014 at 09:29 PM.

  6. #26
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    When we were kids, Alan, astronauts and test pilots were heroes and we admired the technology of flight. Flying, even commercially,
    Yep... and remember when airline pilots were respected?? I think it was in the late 1980s that they became glorified bus drivers in the eyes of corporate raiders such as Frank Lorenzo.

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