PredictIt Update

RGB’s death played a role in my next PredictIt Market. I had a few shares in “Will Trump’s next Supreme Court nominee be a woman?” I bet YES.

I made that bet about a year and a half ago. The radioactive horseshit that were the Kavinaugh hearings just never left me. When they started digging up old high school yearbooks and taking testimony from people that had absolutely no credibility I thought “the only way to get past this is to have a vagina”. What a silly world! What a mess! It’s essentially a natural law of politics that any man… ANY MAN… who orbits the SCOTUS and is nominated by an R; will be accused of something ugly on paper thin pretenses. If the accusation is baseless, as many are, it’s simple fact that he’s getting mistreated. Nobody who falsely accused Kavinaugh paid for their malfeasance. They lied to congress fer crissakes.

No matter who they are, no matter what their behavior, no matter what, every male nominee will get slammed by one or more political operatives. Some sordid tale of sexual misconduct will be unearthed and hurled at him. Kavinaugh got raked over the coals on accusations so flimsy that virtually nobody took them seriously. They were an means to an end.

All hail the Pence Rule!

I bought in at $0.52. I had no opinion on who would be the next nominee. I just figured a fair world would be 50/50 and we haven’t seen fair in years. So I bought in on a female nominee and ignored it.

Meanwhile, a sizable faction of bettors managed to Orange Man Bad themselves into thinking Trump is some sort of misogynous pig. They assume Trump would only nominate a man, because it’s 1950 and we’re on the set of MadMen. The market dropped like a stone and I sat on a losing proposition that was priced around $0.25 for at long while.

When RGB kicked it, the price tripled in one day. Literally in hours.

We live in a world so insane folks think that “if a woman leaves SCOTUS (on a stretcher or not) then a woman must replace her”. As if actual judicial skills are irrelevant. So much for the best qualified human being to do a very hard job. We’ve regressed so badly that we pick successors like fuckin’ Neanderthals! Even Biden said something along the lines of “I haven’t the slightest idea who I’d pick but it would definitely be a woman”. Might as well have a goddamn swimsuit competition.

When the market price tripled I was back in the black. Actually holding a pretty good profit. If I hold until the end and a woman parks her appropriately equipped sexual organs on Bader’s crusty old seat I’d make a high percentage. It sure looks like that might happen.

There was a problem. I already felt greasy and crude for having the slightest thing to do with RGB’s long “Weekend at Bernie’s” sideshow. Did I want to actively participate in the worlds greatest Republic choosing it’s judiciary based on how the nominee sits on a toilet seat?

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”

Fuck it. I’m out.

I clocked out at $0.76 knowing it had a very good chance of going to $1 but also knowing I want nothing to do with it. I took my sizable (41%!) profit, and bailed. It’s trading right now at $0.99 and I don’t give a flying fuck. I’m out of the mudpit and it feels good.

Remember, these bets are a pittance. They’re not to make money so much as to learn. What I’ve learned on these two is I made the right call and it was pretty easy. Just assume people are stupid and selfish and make decisions based on emotional bullshit. I was really hoping people would rise above and surprise me. They didn’t.

Ah well, it’s not every day that one makes a 31% and 41% in profit. That’s pretty good.

Also, my next few positions are low percentages and likely to go bust. If you take a high risk / high payoff trade, you know that some will lose. It’s risk / reward, that makes me stray in the weeds. (Someday I’ll rant about why a 95% Confidence Interval means 1 in 20 times you take it in the shorts even when you’re right.)

As for RGB, she was free to make her choices. All indications are she had no regret and she was tough as hell. I’ll always respect that. But personally, I think she played a pretty piss poor endgame.