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I don’t have to participate in the stock market to stop my children from freezing to death

• gruez 6y ago
  You don't have to participate in the energy market either. She willingly chose to. To modify my original analogy a bit, it's like someone who was overleveraged in commodity futures (think corn, hog, and oil futures, all essential to survival), and got wiped out in a recession.
  • chickenpotpie 6y ago
    She’s not buying commodities or stocks or bonds. She was purchasing electricity to not freeze to death and the electric company said “sorry about the emergency we caused by not winter proofing, that’ll be $10,000.
    • gruez 6y ago
      Being enrolled with a regular electricity provider essentially provides you with an financial instrument in the form of electricity futures. That is, a contract that allows you to buy electricity at a fixed rate, regardless of what the market rate is. Signing up with griddy is essentially the same as selling electricity futures, which exposes you to price fluctuations. In that manner there's nothing different between signing up for griddy, electricty prices rising, and getting wiped out; and selling oil futures, oil prices rising, and getting wiped out.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]