Money and Politics - The Money Masters

[moralist]

That is correct in the steady state. Making a product adds to wealth. Performing a useful service adds to wealth.

Getting started purely on savings is not so easy.

...but it can be done.

Borrowing can give one a kick start and succeeding in the business can rapidly pay back the load after which it is gravy city.

That's fine as long as the business doesn't go bust. There's a problem going into debt to start a business. The increase in the risk you assume is exponential. If it succeeds, it still takes years to dig your way out of the hole. And if it fails, you're screwed. Like someone who is drowning in student loan debt and has a degree in gender studies.

[BaalChatzaf]

That is correct in the steady state. Making a product adds to wealth. Performing a useful service adds to wealth.

Getting started purely on savings is not so easy.

...but it can be done.

Borrowing can give one a kick start and succeeding in the business can rapidly pay back the load after which it is gravy city.

That's fine as long as the business doesn't go bust. There's a problem going into debt to start a business. The increase in the risk you assume is exponential. If it succeeds, it still takes years to dig your way out of the hole. And if it fails, you're screwed. Like someone who is drowning in student loan debt and has a degree in gender studies.

Of course. And those who lend know they are taking a risk. That is one of the reasons that (1) lenders charge interest and (2) it is not so easy to borrow money to start up a business. Venture capitalists think about who they lend to and why. They are not like people in Los Vegas dropping quarter after quarter into the one armed bandits.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

That is correct in the steady state. Making a product adds to wealth. Performing a useful service adds to wealth.

Getting started purely on savings is not so easy.

...but it can be done.

Borrowing can give one a kick start and succeeding in the business can rapidly pay back the load after which it is gravy city.

That's fine as long as the business doesn't go bust. There's a problem going into debt to start a business. The increase in the risk you assume is exponential. If it succeeds, it still takes years to dig your way out of the hole. And if it fails, you're screwed. Like someone who is drowning in student loan debt and has a degree in gender studies.

Of course. And those who lend know they are taking a risk. That is one of the reasons that (1) lenders charge interest and (2) it is not so easy to borrow money to start up a business.

That was obviously not the case for most borrowers in 2008, or the collapse of the debt Ponzi scam couldn't have happened taking down the Creditists who had caused it. But that's bound to happen when debt becomes regarded as an entitlement, and given enough time the inevitable will happen all over again.

My personal responsibility is to protect me and mine by taking the prudent measures (very much like Galt's Gulch) so as not to become financial collateral damage from the collapsing economic pyramids built by others.

Because even as one pyramid comes crashing down...

...another one is already being built to replace it.

[BaalChatzaf]

That is correct in the steady state. Making a product adds to wealth. Performing a useful service adds to wealth.

Getting started purely on savings is not so easy.

...but it can be done.

Borrowing can give one a kick start and succeeding in the business can rapidly pay back the load after which it is gravy city.

That's fine as long as the business doesn't go bust. There's a problem going into debt to start a business. The increase in the risk you assume is exponential. If it succeeds, it still takes years to dig your way out of the hole. And if it fails, you're screwed. Like someone who is drowning in student loan debt and has a degree in gender studies.

Of course. And those who lend know they are taking a risk. That is one of the reasons that (1) lenders charge interest and (2) it is not so easy to borrow money to start up a business.

That was obviously not the case for most borrowers in 2008, or the collapse of the debt Ponzi scam couldn't have happened taking down the Creditists who had caused it. But that's bound to happen when debt becomes regarded as an entitlement, and given enough time the inevitable will happen all over again.

My personal responsibility is to protect me and mine by taking the prudent measures (very much like Galt's Gulch) so as not to become financial collateral damage from the collapsing economic pyramids built by others.

Because even as one pyramid comes crashing down...

...another one is already being built to replace it.

Easy credit was primarily a political move not a rationally based business decision. Businessmen left to their own devices can manage lending and borrowing will within sane constraints. Many successful business have been started up by borrowed money and equity offered to perspective lenders. Some of the firms receiving the loans succeeded and repaid the debt and went on to bigger and better profits.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

That is correct in the steady state. Making a product adds to wealth. Performing a useful service adds to wealth.

Getting started purely on savings is not so easy.

...but it can be done.

Borrowing can give one a kick start and succeeding in the business can rapidly pay back the load after which it is gravy city.

That's fine as long as the business doesn't go bust. There's a problem going into debt to start a business. The increase in the risk you assume is exponential. If it succeeds, it still takes years to dig your way out of the hole. And if it fails, you're screwed. Like someone who is drowning in student loan debt and has a degree in gender studies.

Of course. And those who lend know they are taking a risk. That is one of the reasons that (1) lenders charge interest and (2) it is not so easy to borrow money to start up a business.

That was obviously not the case for most borrowers in 2008, or the collapse of the debt Ponzi scam couldn't have happened taking down the Creditists who had caused it. But that's bound to happen when debt becomes regarded as an entitlement, and given enough time the inevitable will happen all over again.

My personal responsibility is to protect me and mine by taking the prudent measures (very much like Galt's Gulch) so as not to become financial collateral damage from the collapsing economic pyramids built by others.

Because even as one pyramid comes crashing down...

...another one is already being built to replace it.

Easy credit was primarily a political move not a rationally based business decision.

The government can't rightly be blamed for "easy credit", because it can only respond to the demands of the majority who created government in their own image. In this case the demand was to make debt an unearned entitlement. The government is nothing more than a perfect reflection of the values held by the majority. And so the majority got exactly what they deserved in 2008 and its aftermath.

[Brant Gaede]

What did the minority deserve?

--Brant

The majority?

[Brant Gaede]

If you can't have the perfectibility of a societal Utopia retreat to a personal Utopia? Both can come with impregnable circular reasoning. Is that kind of reasoning the whole point?

--Brant

life is great makes right--i.e., true?

[caroljane]

Brant,

Moralist is all about "deserving." This is usually a negative or minus in his value scale, so Utopia will be Dystopia with lots of punishment cells.

[moralist]

What did the minority deserve?

--Brant

The majority?

It's each minority individual's own responsibility to learn how to protect themselves from the majority.

You're on your own.

[moralist]

If you can't have the perfectibility of a societal Utopia retreat to a personal Utopia?

Utopia is a collectivist fantasy... so go forth and build your own world.

[moralist]

Brant,

Moralist is all about "deserving." This is usually a negative or minus in his value scale, so Utopia will be Dystopia with lots of punishment cells.

People who build their own cells deserve to inhabit them...

...so be mindful of what you build because your view will be from the inside looking out.

[Brant Gaede]

If you can't have the perfectibility of a societal Utopia retreat to a personal Utopia?

Utopia is a collectivist fantasy... so go forth and build your own world.

No Utopian Objectivist world? Are you aware you (and your family) are the only one living in your "Galt's Gulch."

--Brant

or did I miss something?

[Brant Gaede]

What did the minority deserve?

--Brant

The majority?

It's each minority individual's own responsibility to learn how to protect themselves from the majority.

You're on your own.

You do a good job of repeating yourself.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Has anyone ever met an heroic gloater?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Perhaps we need a new thread: "Is Prometheus Shit?"

--Brant

[moralist]

If you can't have the perfectibility of a societal Utopia retreat to a personal Utopia?

Utopia is a collectivist fantasy... so go forth and build your own world.

No Utopian Objectivist world?

Nope. It's your responsibility to build your own.

Are you aware you (and your family) are the only one living in your "Galt's Gulch."

Are you aware that there isn't just one Galt's Gulch? ; )

[BaalChatzaf]

What did the minority deserve?

--Brant

The majority?

It's each minority individual's own responsibility to learn how to protect themselves from the majority.

You're on your own.

Jeezus H. Kryst, you are letting the Nazis off the hook. Six million Jews dead in Europe and it was -their- fault?

You are playing that Famous Game: Blame the Victim.

I am convinced your judgement and probity is not worth shit. And I even have doubts about your sanity.

You are not quite barking mad but I would classify you as un-sane.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Frediano]

No Utopian Objectivist world? Are you aware you (and your family) are the only one living in your "Galt's Gulch."

The Galt's Gulches in the world, plural, are in plain sight, and populated via the bane of tribalists: free association.

Indeed, there is no Galt's Gulch. That was a romantic work of fiction from now 60 years ago... three generations ago. But the world today is full of people doing business one on one via free association, Guaranteed.

Not enough 'folks doing this in the world to make a difference to anyone else? Now that's an interesting thought; let me ponder it for the first time in almost 30 years. Maybe not; but then again, not their problem. Those that can, do. But this fringe activity should make the tribalists ecstatic. Because by doing so, they leave more of that which falls from the sky, unabetted, for the tribalists to scoop up like formerly maldistributed rainfall. The results are stunning so far, after decades of this. But then, who is keeping score, using what metric, and why? Tribesmen in rags, living in hovels, heeping scorn on those that aren't sucking the lifeblood out of them anymore by ... giving them jobs? Tell it down at the local, I guess.

The difference between this depression and the last is, our government is doing a much better job of spinning reality. Like redefining the reporting of unemployment. Did you realize that when the POTUS said for the sixth time recently that he was going to freshly focus on the current crisis of "jobs jobs, jobs" that his solution involved ferrying his pet dog on an Osprey flight to Martha's Vinyard for some golf? Here's an easy prediction. When he comes back from his August vacation, he will give another one of those campaign stop speechs with his sleeves rolled up talking about how he is ready now to focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs..." Any day now...the miracle is, how he manages to keep saying it with a straight face.

I am beyond even wondering if the tribalists will ever catch on. It's easy enough to remedy; they just need to show the fangs for what they are in the light of day, start telling(national socialism has nothing at all to do with asking, that is the free association model) folks to line up behind the old tried and true forced association fasces of National Socialism. Now that should be an easy sell jobl the nation is ripe, like 20s Germany.

But, they say, it will come about via (pure) Democracy 51% to 49%.. Just like in a gang rape, where 9 to 1, the victim loses a local vote. I think that is what is called the ethical highground-- the ethics of a gang rape. Forced association, in case you can't see it for what it is.

In a nation of peers living in freedom, under rules fettered by free association, peers ask, they don't tell. Recently, our POTUS stumped with the following sound byte: "What is wrong with asking the most fortunate among us to give a little more?" Indeed, that's all the bottomless gaping maw of the tribalists ever want, is 'more.' But note the lie; he wasn't talking about 'asking' anyone to do anything. He was trying to justify tribal taking without asking. The word 'asking' in the mouth of a devout tribalist is a slur.

Here's what is wrong with that, jackass. JFK's America, a nation of 180M people, gave JFK $100B in tribal federal overhead, over half of which was for defense at the peak of the cold war. We can inflation (x7.5) and population (not even x 2.0) adjust that $100B to $1500B today. We're at $3800B today. That isn't "a little" more, that is alot more. A factor of +250% more in adjusted federal overhead straining our economies relative to JFK's America.

JFK's America paid for its SS.

JFK's America build Ike's Interstates.

JFK's America went to the Moon.

JFK's America righted old civil rights wrongs.

JFK's America sent the graduating class of 1963 out into economies that roared, with real hope and real inspiration and real opportunities.

Compare with the world faced by the class of 2013 and its bloated federal government... doing what?

Panama Canal. Hoover Dam. TVA. Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program. Interstate system.

All great a ccomplishements of our federal government.

All substantially accomplished during a period when our federal government overhead was like or less than JfK's $100B.

Can any of the tribalists describe one thing that the current $3800B/yr federal government is doing that will be remembered in 5 months, never mind 5 decades from now?

Just one would do.

And that is why endlessly falling for the "we only want more" line from our resident tribal children, like the current Ivy League Golden Passer/political basket weaving scientist is a recipe for failure. Besides... why is it that when any of our struggling children go for some crap job in a cubicle, they need to pony up their college transcripts before they can become assistant to the assistant clerk, but a guy who skated through college on some liberal arts basket weaving political science track who yet claims to know how to 'run the economy' is so ashamed of his transcripts that he's got to hide from them, and few of us even want to see the grades before letting him flail away as the new Czar of The Economy?

And while I am pondering the imponderable, can any of the tribalists explain why, in the immediate afternath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the very visible failure of centrally planned command and control 'the economy' running that so many Americans looked at that smoking rubble and concluded "Hey, we should try that here" as evidenced by bobbing their heads along with the folksy Cajin wisdom of Carville and his "Heeeeiiiits the Economy, stooopit!"

[Brant Gaede]

Now that's a post to think about.

--Brant

[moralist]

What did the minority deserve?

--Brant

The majority?

It's each minority individual's own responsibility to learn how to protect themselves from the majority.

You're on your own.

Jeezus H. Kryst, you are letting the Nazis off the hook. Six million Jews dead in Europe and it was -their- fault?

I don't know how to break the bad news to you, but you can't let dead people off the hook because they're dead. I'm talking about life today in America, while you're still living in the dead past. So there will naturally be two different views simply because I don't live where you live.

[BaalChatzaf]

I don't know how to break the bad news to you, but you can't let dead people off the hook because they're dead. I'm talking about life today in America, while you're still living in the dead past. So there will naturally be two different views simply because I don't live where you live.

That past is not dead for me. I was alive at the time. I lost relatives. What did you lose?

Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to relive them.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

What did the minority deserve?

--Brant

The majority?

It's each minority individual's own responsibility to learn how to protect themselves from the majority.

You're on your own.

Jeezus H. Kryst, you are letting the Nazis off the hook. Six million Jews dead in Europe and it was -their- fault?

I don't know how to break the bad news to you, but you can't let dead people off the hook because they're dead. I'm talking about life today in America, while you're still living in the dead past. So there will naturally be two different views simply because I don't live where you live.

A dead past is a past that doesn't inform and affect the present. No such thing. Trying to be like a plant with no roots, you are only embracing ignorance.

--Brant

[caroljane]

Bien dit, Brant.

The past, up to last minute, is all we can know of humanity and ourselves.

[Brant Gaede]

There is a problem with living in the past instead of the present. That's dead, for sure. Living in the future, too. Ayn Rand, BTW, said if you fight for the future you are in the future now, she never said pretend you are actually there. And there are many more historians than futurists. The reason is obvious. Our imaginations are extremely limited but the past is full of facts.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Bien dit, Brant.

The past, up to last minute, is all we can know of humanity and ourselves.

Bien dit, Carol.

--Brant