usually, people just call me Davve.

Unusual to spell Dave with two v's, were your parents also dyslexic? How about everyone holding off on the spelling flames for a while? Having discovered from Hal Finnley that you US types do not lump together derivatives based on futures when you refer to futures I think I now understand the point Perry was originaly trying to make. Yes speculating in ordinary futures, one would normally expect a return of about the same as the margin put up. Does anyone have a first hand report of the precise contracts being traded? There appear to be no details on the Web that Alta Vista has access to. Of course if Perry and his cohorts were not so keen to call people drivelling idiots we would have got to this point rather earlier. I have a habit of not valuing very highly claims from people who feel they have to resort to insults to get an argument across. Perry's mode of argument appears to be the automatic gainsaying of whatever the other person says - not too helpfull. I'm still at a loss to see why Bob thinks I have anything whatsoever to do with the Social Text people. I've never accepted any of the Derrida type stuff and have metaphysical and linguistic objections to that approach based in the theory they are alledgedly advancing. Phill