This One's for George--Galt's Gulch sorta

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

From the Vice story:

“A con of this magnitude could only have existed in the libertarian community...

FF,

Heh.

Does the author mean such a small con?

Out here in the regulated economy, we get cons of a different magnitude like Madoff, Enron and so on.

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Oh, brother... did the stupid suckers ever deserve to get fleeced!

Greg

Nobody deserves to be fleeced, swindled, defrauded, robbed, beaten, molested, raped, or murdered.

That's why we call them "crimes."

[BaalChatzaf]

Oh, brother... did the stupid suckers ever deserve to get fleeced!

Greg

Nobody deserves to be fleeced, swindled, defrauded, robbed, beaten, molested, raped, or murdered.

That's why we call them "crimes."

There is an old saying: Caveat Emptor. Let the buyer beware. If people get less than a bargain because they did not exercise due caution, then perhaps they brought their woes upon themselves.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, brother... did the stupid suckers ever deserve to get fleeced!

Greg

Nobody deserves to be fleeced, swindled, defrauded, robbed, beaten, molested, raped, or murdered.

That's why we call them "crimes."

Except for "molested" and "raped" I could take various types of issue with your statement with exceptions, crimes or not.

Nathaniel Branden was once asked*, "What if someone raped and killed your wife?" "I would do everything I could to kill him."

--Brant

*my testimony

[Francisco Ferrer]

Oh, brother... did the stupid suckers ever deserve to get fleeced!

Greg

Nobody deserves to be fleeced, swindled, defrauded, robbed, beaten, molested, raped, or murdered.

That's why we call them "crimes."

There is an old saying: Caveat Emptor. Let the buyer beware. If people get less than a bargain because they did not exercise due caution, then perhaps they brought their woes upon themselves.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Then there should be no prosecution for fraud.

A jeweler sells a customer a piece of glass and calls it a 14 carat diamond. The customer is not entitled to a refund.

A stock broker sells a customer 100 shares of McDonald's. The stock certificates are counterfeit. The customer deserves the worthless paper.

A man falsely files a disability claim with his insurance company and collects $100,000. The insurance company cannot get their money back. It's their own fault they gave money to a liar.

Everybody who is deceived must be stupid. Stupid people don't deserve to keep what they have.

[Brant Gaede]

Most crimes I suspect are not prosecuted so to avoid no justice at all or the bother of it all don't invest with Bennie Madoff.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

And for godsakes don't prosecute the Madoffs! They provide a sort Darwinian clean-up of the slow movers.

Someone hacked your ID and cleaned out your savings? You deserved it, sucker!

[Wolf DeVoon]

Oh, brother... did the stupid suckers ever deserve to get fleeced!

Greg

Nobody deserves to be fleeced, swindled, defrauded, robbed, beaten, molested, raped, or murdered.

That's why we call them "crimes."

There is an old saying: Caveat Emptor. Let the buyer beware. If people get less than a bargain because they did not exercise due caution, then perhaps they brought their woes upon themselves.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Then there should be no prosecution for fraud.

A jeweler sells a customer a piece of glass and calls it a 14 carat diamond. The customer is not entitled to a refund.

A stock broker sells a customer 100 shares of McDonald's. The stock certificates are counterfeit. The customer deserves the worthless paper.

A man falsely files a disability claim with his insurance company and collects $100,000. The insurance company cannot get their money back. It's their own fault they gave money to a liar.

Everybody who is deceived must be stupid. Stupid people don't deserve to keep what they have.

Insurance companies pay out without investigating a claim? Stock brokers and jewelers prosper by robbing idiots?

Apparently you've never filed an insurance claim, bought a diamond, or called your broker to discuss a trade.

[Francisco Ferrer]

Insurance companies pay out without investigating a claim? Stock brokers and jewelers prosper by robbing idiots?

Apparently you've never filed an insurance claim, bought a diamond, or called your broker to discuss a trade.

As we all know, the omniscience of insurance companies prevents them from ever having to pay a false claim. Ever.

With his reputation in the balance, no stockbroker has ever committed fraud. Ever.

And no diamond merchant would ever be stupid enough to sell fakes. Ever.

Furthermore, since those scenarios are impossible to imagine and since caveat emptor is the guiding principle of the free market, why not abolish all laws against fraud? If the one out of a million chance of a fraud ever occurred, wouldn't the victim deserve it?

[moralist]

Oh, brother... did the stupid suckers ever deserve to get fleeced!

Greg

Nobody deserves to be fleeced, swindled, defrauded, robbed, beaten, molested, raped, or murdered.

You can take the knots out of your panties, Frank. I was specifically referring to the Galt's Gulch swindle.

That video was pure yuppie suckerbait.

...and anyone stupid enough to bite that hook deserved to get fleeced. What did they show in the video? A Mexican contractor will build your house for you and a Mexican gardener will grow food for you, while you live the "good life" in Ayn Rand Utopia. It's a pitch tailor made for highly educated idiots who don't know how to do anything practical for themselves..

Do you REALLY want to live in Galt's Gulch?

Then build your own house and grow your own food and don't expect a bunch of "peons" to do it for you. That's the only real Galt's Gulch, because working to create it for yourself is the only way to do it.

Greg

[moralist]

Apparently you've never filed an insurance claim, bought a diamond, or called your broker to discuss a trade.

Yes.

I've never filed an insurance claim in my life, and I never will.

I've never bought a diamond, and I never will.

I've never had a broker trade for me, and I never will.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

... [one A is B, therefore all A is B] ...

I reiterate, you've never filed an insurance claim, bought a diamond, or phoned your broker to discuss a trade. Laws against fraud do not themselves deter larceny, just as laws against murder do not deter homicides. Next you'll find yourself arguing that there should be a law against confused and dissembling politicians, politicized bureaucrats, and incompetent government.

[Francisco Ferrer]

You can take the knots out of your panties, Frank. I was specifically referring to the Galt's Gulch swindle.

That video was pure yuppie suckerbait.

...and anyone stupid enough to bite that hook deserved to get fleeced. What did they show in the video? A Mexican contractor will build your house for you and a Mexican gardener will grow food for you, while you live the "good life" in Ayn Rand Utopia. It's a pitch tailor made for highly educated idiots who don't know how to do anything practical for themselves..

Do you REALLY want to live in Galt's Gulch?

Then build your own house and grow your own food and don't expect a bunch of "peons" to do it for you. That's the only real Galt's Gulch, because working to create it for yourself is the only way to do it.

Greg

If a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in Chile, then why wouldn't it follow that a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in the United States? What would be the point of having government protect people from liars and charlatans? Surely we don't want to save people from the consequences of the own actions? Just as people in America deserve Obama, so they also deserve credit card fraud, insurance fraud, pension fraud, real estate fraud, and concert ticket fraud. Let's call it winnowing the herd.

People who keep their own cow never have to worry about buying spoiled milk.

[Francisco Ferrer]

I reiterate, you've never filed an insurance claim, bought a diamond, or phoned your broker to discuss a trade. Laws against fraud do not themselves deter larceny, just as laws against murder do not deter homicides. Next you'll find yourself arguing that there should be a law against confused and dissembling politicians, politicized bureaucrats, and incompetent government.

If I had actually bought a diamond, filed an insurance claim or made a purchase through a stock broker, I would realize that since I had suffered no fraud, no one else could either. We call this the logic of composition.

And what is the point of a law, if it does not serve to deter? (As if deterrence were needed in the insurance industry which never makes a payout without a fool-proof investigation.) Why would any victim of Bernie Madoff want to sue him? It won't stop another Madoff, will it?

Finally, what good is a law against lying politicians? As Moralist has observed, since the citizens of the United States deserve socialism, anything that interferes with the delivery of that socialism is an act of injustice,

[Brant Gaede]

The legal system, properly constructed, is like the banks of a river. It creates a potential price for wrong doing and so encourages its discouragement. Non-legal factors may obtain, too. There is very little rape in Hong Kong. I read as a fact, but it is likely only a good speculation, that the rapist is discouraged by not having a place to rape. A certain degree of privacy is needed. (No reference was made to the rest of China or Chinese communities other than H.K.)

It's simple: "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." This is the perspective of a criminal mind set. It generally works in this country, at least.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

If I had actually bought a diamond, filed an insurance claim or made a purchase through a stock broker, I would realize that since I had suffered no fraud, no one else could either. We call this the logic of composition.

You pointed to $80 billion in insurance fraud. Put it in context.

(fraud = 0.0006% of commercial insurance in force)

Commercial insurance in force

$20 trillion life

$30 trillion accident & health

$75 trillion property & casualty

$125 trillion

Next, you point to Bernie Madoff: $36 billion invested, $18 billion paid out + $8 billion recovered = $10 billion loss

(loss = 0.00001% of total investor funds under management)

Investor Funds

$28 trillion pension assets

$15 trillion mutual funds

$15 trillion commercial bank assets

$10 trillion net home equity

$10 trillion retail stock investors

$5 trillion 401k and IRAs

$83 trillion

There are 3.2 million people engaged in law enforcement, firefighting, regulation, etc (1% of U.S. population)

Our dwellings are rendered safe from fire by homeowners and tenants, employing nothing more coercive than an individual desire to survive. All instrumentalities of community protection and public welfare existed first as private voluntary organizations before dilettantes and wardhealers proposed that a bureaucracy should monopolize and run them badly. [Laissez Faire Law, p.35]

I hereby certify that the law cannot catch or deter a clever evildoer. That's not the purpose of law, which exists first as a means of restraining mob violence, ignorant prejudice, and statist tyranny... The law is mostly voluntary, folks. I acknowledged this openly and emphatically in my essay 'Government Is A Quack Faith-Healer.' If there is to be law and order, you yourselves will be the police of it. [COGIGG, pp. 66, 132]

[Brant Gaede]

I don't get that Madoff investor loss percentage at all. How does a 10 billion loss = that percentage?

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

I don't get that Madoff investor loss percentage at all. How does a 10 billion loss = that percentage?

--Brant

% of all U.S. investor funds under management (bankers, brokers, fund managers). The tragedy of Madoff was affinity marketing.

[Brant Gaede]

Got it.

The Federal management of SS trust "funds" is 100%--its "bonds" are phoney. It's effectively a Ponzi scheme. So too Medicare. At least SS has "bonds." It really makes no difference what Medicare has.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Got it.

The Federal management of SS trust "funds" is 100%--its "bonds" are phoney. It's an effective Ponzi scheme.

--Brant

Yup. All government is theft. Compare PIMCO's $2 trillion in bond assets.

[moralist]

If a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in Chile, then why wouldn't it follow that a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in the United States?

It is impossible for fraud to take place without a match of values between two people. Without a match of values one person's lie cannot be believed by the other person. It takes an exact match of values for the liar to be believed by the sucker.

Taking this principle to a broader view... the liar who lies to others is equally subject to being the sucker who believes the lies of other liars.

The only resolution is to learn how to become neither liar nor sucker. If you do not take unfair advantage of others, others will not be able to take unfair advantage of you.

This is because your values will not match theirs.

Greg

[caroljane]

I have known Wendy McElroy to be invariably principled, courageous and trustworthy.

Have you ever read this?

J

or collaborated in any writing or other business projects with her?

[Jonathan]

I've been reading the info and opinions at the links provided throughout this thread. Here are some of the highlights and my take on them:

It was a good idea, in theory anyway. The plan was to form a sustainable community made up of people who believed in capitalism, limited government, and self-reliance.

I get the impression that the target market was people who haven't a clue what actual self-reliance is. The target seems to have been people who are very dependent on society, and incapable of directly producing and providing for themselves. Executives. Managers. Academics.

People bought it, and bought into it. In November 2013, GGC hosted a celebration on the property, bringing in shareholders, and those interested in becoming shareholders, to view the land and meet one another. Josh Kirley, a commodities trader who was considering making an investment, was impressed by the quality of his potential neighbors.

Great. Was he impressed by anything that would actually be relevant, like reviewing the local laws, policies and procedures? Did it occur to him or any of the others to investigate whether or not their new imagined paradise was actually in reality more free than the nations from which they were hoping to flee?

It sounds as if these investors/buyers had the mindset of the characters in Atlas Shrugged who invested in d'Anconia -- the people who were impressed by irrelevant things like the stature of Francisco and of the other people who were investing with him, or their agreement with what they thought were his motives, rather than taking Dagny's approach of thinking for herself and evaluating relevant information.

“These were people who had made money in oil, had made money in real estate. They were former academics, former military. They were very liberty-minded people: non-litigious, hard-working, self-made, intelligent,” he told me. “It was the people I met there that sold it to me.”

Did any of them ever produce any wealth -- I mean actually create it, originate it? Or were they all paper-pushers who were dependent on others' creations of wealth? Were any of them capable of making anything rather than being middle-men between those who made and those who consumed?

Why do these people fantasize about self-reliance when they seem to be so distant from ever having lived it?

“It is now time for a libertarian exodus that will not take you away from your true home, but toward it.”

Heh.

"There will be no zoning for the 1.25-acre lots or other arrangements of less than 10 acres. Lots over 10 acres are beyond my ken. GGC is an environmentally protected area and it would take the political movement of heaven and earth to allow a community based on small lots to be officially approved."

"Officially approved" by whom? Zoning permits not having been obtained from whom? Prior to advising everyone to embark on a "libertarian exodus" toward freedom and away from the "tyranny" of North America, how did it not occur to her to investigate the potential tyrannies of the Promised Land?

I had the opportunity to ask a question of the salesman who showed my husband and me "our property." I claimed it because I fell head over heels for the most beautiful tree I've ever seen. I felt an instant connection as though the two of us were old souls who had found each other. I could believe it, I could see it... waking up each morning and having coffee under that tree, telling it about my plans for the day.

Jesus.

Others bought 10- or 25-acre lots and some invested in the agricultural side of the venture; extremely savvy investors committed small fortunes.

They don't sound "savvy" at all. They sound as if they are used to hiring others do their thinking and working for them, and that they're very dependent on being protected by the type of governments that they oppose.

Shortly after purchasing, I received an unsigned email through the webform of a site I maintain. It informed me that GGC was a fraud. One reason: GGC lacked water rights. In Chile, purchasing surface land and water rights are two separate processes. GGC is desert terrain, rather like California, and water rights are absolutely necessary for a community to be established.

No one was "savvy" enough to discover the water and zoning issues prior to investing or purchasing?

J

[Selene]

If a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in Chile, then why wouldn't it follow that a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in the United States? What would be the point of having government protect people from liars and charlatans? Surely we don't want to save people from the consequences of the own actions? Just as people in America deserve Obama, so they also deserve credit card fraud, insurance fraud, pension fraud, real estate fraud, and concert ticket fraud. Let's call it winnowing the herd.

Frank:

You remind me of the major league relief pitcher who is a one pitch pitcher...and can't hear or see any other way to get the ball to the plate.

The point everyone is trying to make to you is that NO FUCKING LAW EVER PREVENTS THE CRIME...

Yet you stridently wish to go on your reductio ad absurdom pitch...

Can you you not see their argument?

I would love to see you restate the person's argument before you launch that one pitch you rely on.

It would definitely lower your ERA [earned run average].

A...

[Jonathan]

If a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in Chile, then why wouldn't it follow that a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in the United States? What would be the point of having government protect people from liars and charlatans? Surely we don't want to save people from the consequences of the own actions? Just as people in America deserve Obama, so they also deserve credit card fraud, insurance fraud, pension fraud, real estate fraud, and concert ticket fraud. Let's call it winnowing the herd.

Frank:

You remind me of the major league relief pitcher who is a one pitch pitcher...and can't hear or see any other way to get the ball to the plate.

The point everyone is trying to make to you is that NO FUCKING LAW EVER PREVENTS THE CRIME...

Yet you stridently wish to go on your reductio ad absurdom pitch...

Can you you not see their argument?

I would love to see you restate the person's argument before you launch that one pitch you rely on.

It would definitely lower your ERA [earned run average].

A...

I think that his technical point that no one deserves to be defrauded is correct, especially in the context of Greg's ideas on morality, which are based on nothing but logical fallacies.

Greg's favorite is that of affirming the consequent. Something like:

Taking evil actions results in bad things.

Person X is experiencing bad things.

Therefore person X took evil actions and deserves what he got.

In order to deserve nasty consequences, one has to actually know about any evil involved, and to either consciously ignore it or hope to benefit from it. I don't think that the people who got screwed in the Chilean deal fit those criteria.

If you make a career of knowingly messing with dangerous animals for others' amusement, you deserve to get a stingray barb to the heart, or to be dragged off stage in a tiger's jaws. You don't deserve anything like that if you're unknowingly swimming in infested waters, or walking a nature trail.

J