Potus ???

[tree-fancier123]

commodities markets are the new bitcoin - 

[GarethM]

20 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

commodities markets are the new bitcoin - 

That's nothing to do with markets, there's a cocoa shortage due to some disease.

 

It's a bit like banana's, they have a disease as it's like 1 or 2 species of tree, so no resistance in the banana groves where there's hundreds of trees.

[tree-fancier123]

15 minutes ago, GarethM said:

That's nothing to do with markets, there's a cocoa shortage due to some disease.

of course there is an underlying cause of disruption to the supply - but the markets are still used as instruments of speculation - not sure about cocoa, but sometimes with oil there are far more paper contracts than there is oil to deliver on them - you probably remember during covid the crazy moment in march 2020 when for a few hours oil was at minus $40 a barrel (because there was no storage to take physical delivery)

I reckon that cocoa chart has been bid up by financial buyers as well as Cadburys

[GarethM]

I dunno, blame the milky bar kid.

 

I don't eat either 🙂

[tree-fancier123]

found an example to illustrate the point

In 2010, a U.K. hedge fund manager spent around $1 billion to acquire the legal rights to about seven percent of the world’s annual production of cocoa – enough beans to make over 5 billion bars of chocolate. This cocoa trader, dubbed “Chocolate Finger” as a nod to the Bond villain Goldfinger, never intended to actually use his hoard of cocoa for anything. He was a financial speculator, an investor who made millions of dollars when the world cocoa supply did not meet the demands of chocolate makers, the price of cocoa went up, and the chocolate companies came to Chocolate Finger for desperately needed cocoa. 

The condemnation of Chocolate Finger was universal, with the loudest objections coming from European chocolate companies and transnational cocoa suppliers. The London Exchange investigated Chocolate Finger’s purchases but found “no evidence of abusive behavior”. By the standards of commodity trading, that is probably true. But when the real-world impacts of cocoa commodity trading are investigated, the evidence shows that traders such as Chocolate Finger are hurting the farmers, who risk everything to grow cocoa, in two major ways. First, they take money from the total revenue generated by cocoa products despite not adding any value to the cocoa economy. Second, the commodity market amalgamates the world’s cocoa supply into one giant pool of identical goods, with no differentiations between high-quality, sustainable, ethically produced beans and the low-quality beans grown by trafficked children. 

 

[Youngstu]

On 24/01/2025 at 21:00, Johnsond said:

No one’s seeing red or getting defensive, but speaking absolute rubbish and preaching your LGBTQ trans shite to a guy who has reasonably successfully raised 6 up to now well balanced decent human beings is just patronising garbage. You left wing buggers see anyone who disagrees with your lunacy as either angry, ic, ist or far right. Raise your kids how you want. But don’t expect the more traditional two genders types out there to buy into the same  lunacy.

I think it's really more about respect, empathy and kindness. 

From a personal perspective I think religious beliefs are essentially a load of waddle and brainwashing, but even though I think that, I don't feel the need to tell friends, colleagues or others that what they think is wrong in my opinion. 

If they individually are doing no harm with their beliefs and practises, respect their choices and leave them be. 

 

Out of interest have you been in a position where you refuse to use a person's chosen name or outwardly refuse to respect their gender choice, or is it at this stage hypothetical bluster? 

[Johnsond]

25 minutes ago, Youngstu said:

I think it's really more about respect, empathy and kindness. 

From a personal perspective I think religious beliefs are essentially a load of waddle and brainwashing, but even though I think that, I don't feel the need to tell friends, colleagues or others that what they think is wrong in my opinion. 

If they individually are doing no harm with their beliefs and practises, respect their choices and leave them be. 

 

Out of interest have you been in a position where you refuse to use a person's chosen name or outwardly refuse to respect their gender choice, or is it at this stage hypothetical bluster? 

There’s zero hypothetical shit with me, the answer to your question is an absolute 100% yes. Let this go YS you have your views I have mine. You raise your kids as you see fit. Good luck 

[Youngstu]

9 hours ago, Johnsond said:

There’s zero hypothetical shit with me, the answer to your question is an absolute 100% yes. Let this go YS you have your views I have mine. You raise your kids as you see fit. Good luck 

So if you had a family member, or a good friend, or one of their children who decided that they weren't who they originally were and chose a different name and gender that they wished to be recognised and addressed by, you would point blank refuse to do that to their face, despite that being their wish and that of those supporting them?

I'm not asking about when you're talking about them to others, but actually to their face.

[peds]

[Johnsond]

3 hours ago, Youngstu said:

So if you had a family member, or a good friend, or one of their children who decided that they weren't who they originally were and chose a different name and gender that they wished to be recognised and addressed by, you would point blank refuse to do that to their face, despite that being their wish and that of those supporting them?

I'm not asking about when you're talking about them to others, but actually to their face.

You have been given the opportunity to let this go but seem to want to keep picking away at it. I’d far rather you get to the point and say what you want rather than pissing around like another ATL member often does on here. 
I tend not to talk about others or indeed be in the habit of saying one thing behind their back and something different to them in person.

There are two genders, you are a male or a female at birth, if I had a friend or a family member who I’d known for years as x and then decided y is the new gender or title then as I’ve told you already do not  insult me and the reality of nature and expect me to play along with the illusion that a man can be a woman just because he identifies as such. I don’t know how much clearer you want that to be. 
Anyway you raise your kids as you see fit with as many genders as you want, I’ve absolutely no interest at all in playing this to and fro ludicrous transgender bollocks, hypothetical scenario game with you. 
If you want to see the utter madness that happens when you try and justify the shite you are on about do some research on the case in the pic attached, it was as though grown sensible adults had lost all sense of reality “ trans woman ffs “ actually think about it for a moment. 
 

Edited 14 hours ago by Johnsond