Quote Originally Posted by Coaccession View Post
Gee, davewindsor, you'll stretch really far to score points. If only Detroit didn't own any DIA artworks, your analogy would make sense. George Parker didn't own anything he sold. Detroit owns billions of dollars in artworks.



Ahhh... but Detroit would be selling ownership, davewindsor, while retaining a cultural easement.



Just like the people buying ETFs don't have a real claim to the gold in the vault? But wait, they do, even though they can't get physical delivery at a time of their choosing. But even if they could get physical delivery, when investors buy and hold gold, they're only counting on the potential for future appreciation. Gold has been a pyramid of appreciation for thousands of years, according to your grand unified theory of finance. Never paid dividends, cost you storage if you didn't want to secure it yourself... but there it is. People still buy it and hold it.

Your theory's good if you can explain what happens. Have gold prices collapsed? Do you think they will tomorrow? Have ETF prices collapsed? They didn't yesterday. But ETF shareholders can't take physical delivery. The prices must collapse if your theory's right. These darn phony pyramids of appreciation! Killing another beautiful theory with an ugly fact. Ugly, ugly phony pyramids of appreciation that people trade on stock exchanges!!



And now you're trying to pull a scam, arguing against a strawman of some person unknown who proposes selling exchange-traded artworks based on paintings he doesn't own. Detroit owns billions of dollars in artworks. If Detriot sells IPOs of exchange-traded artwork rights, they're based on paintings it owns. Do you think you can easily dupe DetroitYessers into believing your strawman argument?



You are just selling a strawman argument that isn't worth as much as the pixels you propagate it on. You are not arguing against Detroit selling exchange-traded artworks rights based on artworks it actually owns. You are arguing against a scam hoping people will agree with you because they oppose scams, without ever bothering to make any kind of connection between that scam and a method Detroit might use to have its Monet and money too. Do you think DYessers are idiots who can't see the difference?



Well, yes, davewindsor, and I earned my PhD at the University of Arizona, graduating in 1993. But since you put in a link associating me with an educational scam, I thought you wouldn't mind me putting in a link associating you with an educational scam. You do follow the Golden Rule, don't you? You do things to me that you want me to do to you, right? Or will you do just about anything to score points, hoping that other discussants won't do the same to you?



When you own real estate, you can exclude trespassers, but you can't exclude easement holders. Does utility access mean you don't really own the real estate?



Does the fact that Detroit owns an exhibition easement on your artwork mean you don't really own it? Does it make exchange-traded artwork rights worthless? Your theory predicts people won't buy ETFs, yet they do. You need a better theory, davewindsor.



And if people buy your George Parker strawman argument, they'll think they
bought an argument against exchange-traded artwork rights when they did not. The question might be, davewindsor, why are you trying to con DYessers? Detroiters could use Detroit's DIA assets to have tens of millions of dollars -- perhaps hundreds of millions -- in added revenues to help make Detroit a healthier, safer and more pleasant and cultured place, and you're trying to con them out of having those added benefits. I could ask, what have you got against Detroit's safety and health?

That's the wrong question to ask now, though. Scientists know that the easiest person to fool is themselves. I predict Detroit could have billions of dollars in a Detroit Arts Endowment and still have its artworks in the DIA. That's based on my honest reading of the evidence I know. Still, the reading could be wrong or there could be contradictory evidence I don't know. I'm open to reason and evidence, and happy to see what folks discuss here. You probably fooled yourself, davewindsor, and had no intention of conning anyone here. It's easy to forget that I've got to convince Detroiters to want the City to sell exchange-traded artwork rights and to think I'm saying that I would sell them. That would indeed be like George Parker. But if Detroit sells them, that's like ETFs -- Detroit would get the investors' money, and investors would get the Monet's appreciation. I'm sure you see the difference now. It's the give and take of peer review that can expand knowledge.
No, the people who bought from George Parker didn't own anything just like the people who buy artwork ETFs. The investor ends up losing their money on the same scam. What happens if the DIA blows all that money it got on this scam? It goes into receivership. Do the investors get the painting or are they sh-it out of luck?

You can't even argue appreciation of gold to artwork unless you can show legitimate ownership. Cultural easements is just a misleading mumbo jumbo. It's a scam.

You: "If Detriot sells IPOs of exchange-traded artwork rights, they're based on paintings it owns. Do you think you can easily dupe DetroitYessers into believing your strawman argument?"

Look, you are not arguing selling artwork rights unless it includes the right to sell the actual painting, not a worthless piece of paper. Then, you go ad hominem calling me the duper for challenging the scam you initiated. Show me one place in the world where your scam sale of ETF artworks was successfully done. Oh, you can't. But I can show you millions of scams if you like.

I guess everyone here is an idiot except you because everyone has the street smarts to see a con job and call him out for it, but you keep living in denial. Maybe you should google the definition of "delusional".

I never went to those real estate seminars nor would I recommend anyone go to one. As I stated before, you can get all that information from a $20 book.

YOU: "When you own real estate, you can exclude trespassers, but you can't exclude easement holders. Does utility access mean you don't really own the real estate?"

Completely off topic. In real estate, a utility easement doesn't prevent you from selling a parcel of land with a utility easement on it. In most cases, you can still put a building on that parcel to increase it's value. I can walk on the land, charge rent and/or use it to earn an operating income in addition to capital appreciation. In fact, the parcel is often worth more money because a utility easement on a parcel most likely means you are trading a serviced lot. You, on the other hand, are advocating title to property that cannot be sold on the open market or have any of the rights that a property owner would have. You're comparing apples to oranges

Not all gold investors buy and hold gold. Some gold investors are jewelry makers, microchip manufacturers, etc. who are securing future gold to ensure a steady flow of raw materials so that their plants are operating smoothly. And some of these gold investors that buy and hold gold are going to be selling gold bars to manufacturers plus their markup for selling real gold that they receive in the future.

With your artwork ETFs, you can't do that. You don't own the artwork, so if the Sotheby's dealer approaches you with a better offer for phyiscal ownership, you can't do that. If the DIA runs into financial difficulty and makes a bad investment on the money they raise, you'll see how quickly the value of those worthless ETF shares drop because the investor cannot get possession of the artwork. The investor ends up with a worthless piece of paper just like the deeds that George Parker sold investors. That's the difference between real ownership and the scam you are trying to sell.