Frediano

This is the huge main body of the iceberg below the surface that no one ever sees... the millions of times when brandishing a weapon without firing prevents harm to good people by thwarting the intentions of bad people. So many times just the willingness to pull the trigger is sufficient to convince bad people to stop. Greg Greg: Exactly-- because nothing happens. No weapon is fired. Nothing to report. And yet, the weapon in those instances is effective precisely because it is lethal. This effectiveness works two ways -- both in the decision to threaten the projection of aggression, and in the decision to resist the threat of aggression. They were separate circumstances in the instances I described. I did not overtly brandish a weapon or wave it around in the public instance. From a distance, anyone observing would have no idea I was doing anything other than loosening my shirt. To someone in front of me, who had my immediate attention and vice versa, they no doubt realized I was armed as I attempted to find relief from the evenings heat. And I politely commented on how hot the night was, which was a fact. It was still a judgement call; under concealed carry laws, they are concealed carry laws-- by making it known, even inadvertently, that I was armed, I was elevating the situation. I understand that. But the alternative was to do nothing -- to wait until young masked mr do rag zippered sweatshirt on a hot summer night had run into the shop while the little buzzy tinted windows jap car driver waited idling and illegally parked right outside the door, where my wife and sons were picking out ice cream and then react to their ability to manage their own choices. He could have filed a complaint that I intimidated him with my inadvertent disclosure that I was armed. He had no obligation to do anything other than stand his ground and do whatever he was going to do in that public place. Amazingly, he did not. Nothing happened. And in a world where I take the responsibility for the outcomes of my decisions, that same world must hold itself accountable in the instance of disarming only me by force in that situation and making me impotently watch my wife and sons risk getting get shot in a botched robbery attempt by some shit for brains. Where are the statistics for these nothing happened events? I was involved in two over the course of the last 20 years. Nothing happened. Where are the statistics for the instances of shootings in 'gun free' zones -- zones effective only in disarming the victims? Where is the accounting for those deaths and injuries? regards, Fred

For sure. PA has both Castle Defense and SYG friendly statute...for now. In addition, in some courts, local judges who comment on cases of homeowners meeting incompetent burglars with shotguns along the lines of '...and this should happen more often; maybe these idiots would start to think twice.' But, in any given court, in front of any given judge or jury, who knows? There is rule of law, and then, there is rule of the local majority. Exactly as you say. What is of some minor concern is, ongoing attempts to federalize/restrict both Castle Defense and SYG laws, rendering the idea of living in a Castle Defense state moot at some point. But I don't see that happening, even if it is being attempted. regards, Fred

Defensive force is not retaliatory force. A burglar and a robber are two different things; a burglar burgles, a robber robs. A burglar who intends to be a burglar, but through his own incompetence and malice becomes a robber instead( ie., by exposing some innocent to his shit-for-brains choices in life), bears the responsibility for the resulting defensive actions of the innocent. The ethics of free vs forced association are clear as a bell in such circumstances; there is no ethical obligation for a robbery victim to give any benefit of any doubt as to what might be the true intentions of an incompetent burglar becoming an inadvertent robber. The initiator of the confrontation is clear. The avoidance of the conflict is trivial and not a burden to anyone. It becomes a burden by the actions of an incompetent burglar. If I am confronted with an incompetent burglar inside of my home, I am not going to ask what his intentions were, or examine his upbringing or condition in life. I am instead going to rely on a tool designed to eliminate all possibility of threat to my family, by ending the aggression from the aggressor as effectively as possible, using a tool designed to kill, which will be my intent when aiming for center of mass using 230g .45c JHP hollow points. I will call 911. I will tell the police what happened, when they arrive in a half hour. I will help them fill out their reports. I will commiserate with the family of the perp, and regret along with them what defect in their lives brought them to this end. And I will remove the residue of the garbage from my home. Outside of my home is an entirely different circumstance; the concept of direct threat to my family takes on an entirely different set of hurdles. We share the public commons. I've been carrying for over 20 years. Outside of my home in this period, I've used a weapon twice. Not the same weapon, and not the same circumstances. Once in public, and once in the context of my office in a private place of business. Both weapons were used and effective without firing. In both instances, no long lasting effect of any type of force or aggression from all involved. In the public instance, it was a summer evening after a little league baseball game. My wife and sons and a group of their friends had gone to a strip mall ice cream shop. I was waiting alone, outside. Was late in day, but still light out. The strip mall was kind of quiet but the ice cream store was bustling inside with little leaguers and parents. This little 'buzzy' jap car with the noisy muffler and dark tinted windows comes speeding up, not into the parking spaces, but pulls up right in front of the ice cream store. Inside are a few thugged up looking teens, do rags. Driver stays in car, another jumps out, pulls do rag over his face, has zippered sweatshirt on hot night. Not looking good. I'm thinking, "Shit, these idiots are really going to do this in a shop full of kids and moms?" Driver is looking at me, I look at him, and open my shirt, like I'm hot, exposing my .45. Do rag is approaching me/door to ice cream shop, and I'm still holding my shirt open, look at the kid and said "It's a hot night, isn't it?" He says nothing, looks at the driver, turns around heads back to car, and they buzz off. Nothing happened. Maybe they got ice cream somewhere else. Maybe they were just there for ice cream. Maybe I was just hot, on a hot night. Or maybe the crap shiny .25 in the tool's pocket suddenly seemed less inspiring. Nothing happened. No problem for anybody. The other incident occurred late at night at my office. A connected warehouse was built behind my back office wall, that used to be a window. It was now open into the warehouse area(its a bookshelf now, but was open for a while when the warehouse was first built.) 1:30am, the warehouse is dark, I hear all kinds of banging around down there in the dark. I take my butt ugly 12g pump and go to the open stairs down to the warehouse. I flip the lights on and rack one up(this is why people prefer 12g pumps, for that same in all languages distinctive sound.) I hear the pitter patter of feet running out the back of the warehouse-- these were competent burglars in retreat. Pickup truck scoots away into the night. Nothing happens. Everyone goes home with a story to tell. Had they pressed the point and transitioned to incompetent burglars-now-robbers, I was not about to place my life in their incompetent hands, wonder if they were armed, what their intent was. If it's not somebody I know saying "Relax, Fred, Its me..." or some plausible reason to be banging around at 1:30 in the dark in a closed warehouse, then the responsibility for the outcome is in the hands of the perps, even if the outcome is not. Retaliatory force would be, me jumping in my car and chasing retreating burglars in their pickup truck. Totally not justified. In both instances(and far many more unreported just like them)those weapons functioned exactly as designed, precisely because they are designed to kill, not annoy. My office butt ugly black 12g pump: 00 buck, 00 buck, sabot, 00 buck, 00 buck, sabot, 00 buck... and five add'l 00 buck on the stock. Never been fired at any ducks, and no insulation has ever been shredded in vain. Bought it at army/navy store decades ago. Only ever actually been fired at the state gamelands at clay targets, for fun. I hope that is always the case. But that isn't totally up to me. I only know, in the absence of actions by others, that 12g is harmless to others. regards, Fred

Yes, but what he actually did was ... unilaterally raise MW for 16,000 fed contractors. (Maybe...as if any federal contractor is working anywhere near MW!) He is talking tough for his base...and doing little. Dedicated poser. Obama fatigue has set in, even with his supporters. He needs mostly to be laughed at, at this point. As does Chris Christie. They can both take a hike. As in, should both be impeached. One for abusing the NJ governor's office. And the other for something important. Who do I thank for taking Christie out of the picture? I feel like I should be writing a check to someone. I thought for sure 2016 was going to be Christie vs Clinton.

The most obvious fact of the Boomer's demographic is that we did not conceive and create ourselves. Re-create maybe, but not create. Neither did the Boomers 'save SS' in the 80s by raising taxes on an already surplus paying demographic just to spend it immediately, faster. Those perps are all dead. While they were being fleeced, most of the Boomers had no idea that the -extra- almost 9% of payroll they were asked to fork over for their entire working lives would someday show up as empty IOUs, thrown at their kids, with the demand that they be over-taxed -a second time to create the very same 'asset.' But...what species does this to their kids? And so, back to a hard look at how and why the Boomer's were over-conceived in such large numbers. The Greatest Generation is gone. Their generational pain was all front end loaded. Their youth wasn't spend in Disneyland, it was spent in the Depression and then fighting and winning WWII, a monumental effort that wrestled every free-world opportunity since from the jaws of a slobbering world selling Totalitarian alternatives. The Disneyland of Existence that the Boomers erupted into did not come about without extreme generational effort. And so, we Boomers need to look at SS as what it was; a one time thank you to the Greatest Generation, who ponied up more than their share of generational pain and effort. But today, with the last of the Greatest Generation fading, it is time to turn to our kids and take on our share of generational pain-- to finally pay the bill by not demanding that they pony up the political promises of politicians long dead. No, its time to convert SS from a (politically)defined benefit program to a true pay-as-you-go defined contribution program. In that form, SS will never be an unsustainable burden on our children, and as well, defines generational fairness. Yes, it means less benefits than politically promised by politicians long dead. But what species does this to its young? As well, accepting less benefits than promised is not like losing a leg in Normandy, so buck up. Want higher benefits? Then do what the Greatest Generation did. Win a war. Raise more kids. Bandage their skin knees, send them to school. If, instead, as a generation we opt for the second vacation home and Bass boat, then fine, but life is choices. Does the Boomer generation have what it takes to not hose over its kids? Not looking good. OTOH, their kids are largely begging for more of the same. So who is to blame for that? Who raised and educated their kids? Poet Robert Frost, in the early 60s, right before his death, asked what he thought of the New Generation: "I'd have great hope for them, if only we could give them the gift of our struggle. Alas, we are a success, and cannot."

Still waiting for the very first example -- from anybody -- I've been asking the question for over 20 years -- of an economic action performed primarily as a 'quintile' .. or 'decimile' ... or 'percentile.' Just one example would do. I'd even accept something made up, like from a lost episode of Star Trek. Because all 1040s still say 'INDIVIDUAL' at the top in big, can't mistake them letters. What this chart documents is 'slacker nation.' This argument and this chart are nothing new; the same folks were pushing this nonsense 30 yrs ago, which is one of the reasons I acted the way I did 30 yrs ago, and since. The CEO of the corporation I work for makes exactly what the lowest paid employee makes, because the CEO is the only officer is the only shareholder is the only employee of the corporations, plural. Chart that. I'll watch, and applaud. Nice use of colors. I especially liked the curling of the lip and the sneer when the narator said "socialism." Oh the irony. Socialize this. Too late. You'd need a time machine. Now, go enjoy the fruits of 'social justice...'

Is that anything like a swift kick in the caudal direction? It is opposite, and yet, strangely, similar...

In the old-school, sane economies, there used to be three primary(and one fringe)way to participate in them: 1] ROI totally at risk, with no limits on downside, and no limits on upside. Can work for years and end up roadkill, net 0. This is, man in the universe, as it it. The universe doesn't know 'deserve.' It just deals from the top of the deck. 2] ROI guaranteed as wages. A negotiated ROI for every pull of the pump handle, with the wages discounted to reflect the value of the guarantee. You might 'lose your job' but you are paid right up until the last day at a positive ROI. Guaranteed by who? By others participating with ROI totally at risk. 3] Self-modulated participation in the unlimited risk-reward marketplace via purchase of equities, using anything from 0% to 100% of our discretionary spending. The fringe way was: as a helpless dependent, relying on the subsidy and charity of others. There used to be an overhead cost superimposed on 1],2],3] which was, taxation fro necessary common goverment. In 1913, the top earning 1% paid at most 6% of income. As this profligate OPM spending machine did nothing but grow out of all control, it has come to totally dominate the above model, to the point where it now claims to 'run the[sic] economy' via tax rates and interest rates and money supply policy. What used to be state plumbers, once honorably tasked with keeping the plumbing of state clean and free flowing, have mistaken the plungers we handed them for scepters. And today is the result. Are we there yet? Does this infestation of plumber-emperor wannabes really need to screw the pooch even more before we get it? They've all but killed the risk-reward engines that once drove economies-- not just by trying to punish and ride them like public property ponies, but by selectively colluding with them to implement a shed-risk model. Total tribal insanity, going nowhere but to the bottom of every hill. The very essence of what Freddie and Fannie are all about is shed-risk, and they are wrapped up in over 90% of all new mortgages; they are the backstop that creates MBS(Mortgage Backed Securities)to encourage banks to shed risk onto taxpayers as part of some half-baked social experiement that blew up in 2008, but that is being doubled down on as we speak. (Shedding risk onto the pump pullers via MBS was also part of QE). The 'crisis' was that those who had taken on the risk might bear the dowsnide of risk, and they cried 'crisis' until that dowsnide was shed via forced association onto the entire nation, who has not beneffitted from any upside of that same risk. Deserves?

In the new shed risk model, who 'deserves' to bear the downside of risk via forced association? As in, for those who did not willingly enter a risk transaction, which of them 'deserves' to bear the downside of risk? If I wanted to buy stock in GM, I'd buy stock in GM. Or, as a US taxpayer, with an out of all control federal government that picks winners and losers for me using my resources at the point of a gun, running its crony based chutes and ladders nonsense. If I wanted to purchace insurance to cover the downside of risk, I'd purchase insurance. If I do not, then ... who 'deserves' to pay the downside of my risk on my behalf? Would that be, someone forced, at the point of a gun, under threat of loss of their freedom, to cover my risk for me? (Be I GM, AIG, a mortgage lender, or any entity in the economies?) And what did the GM bondholders do to 'deserve' accepting a kind of risk that wasn't in the game when they accepted the risk of buying those bonds? Were they supposed to plan for the eventuality of someone simply signing pen to paper in government and wiping out those bonds(and in so doing, wiping out the pension assets of hardworking Americans?) A tribe doesn't pull crap like that without consequences. A tribe can get away with that at most once every few generations. So now, that tribe can lookl to deer in headlights Krugman et. al. to get them out of this bottom of the hill cul de sac by asking more secretaries to print more zeros on pieces of paper. Politico economists have mucked with the risk-reward engines that drive our economies up hills, by focusing only on policies that try to ride value-proxies downhill. We're there. Now what? We can huddle around at the bottom of every hill and talk about who 'deserves' to be here. Towards what end? Because it isn't about climbing hills.

With that model of the economies, you can see why QE1 and QE2 didn't work. $2T in funny money was created on the government's credit tank(to be paid back int he future by the pump pullers.) This money sloshed through -some- of the turbines, extracting value from the economies. But the extra water had no place to go...so it sloshed out of this model and into a side mode-- the equities marketplace, where it showed up as inflated stock prices. America said "How can there be record highs on Wall Street when there is no water circulating in the system? No new pump and turbine stations, with more people pulling at pump handles? Because there was no -new- value in the economies represented by the manufactured $2T in current accounts. he funny money just ran downhill, and then showed up as inflated stock prices as long as the dwonhill tsunami of funny money was maintained. Risk takers -saw- the capricious nature of this government, its selective fatfingering of the economies, the hosing of the GM bondholders, the Solyndras, etc. Risk takers -- the folks who build pump and turbine stations at risk -- had decreased incentives in this environment to take on risk and prepay their own ransom -- to become the next GM bondholders -- and so, took a pass. So, here comes Hell to pay-- the $2T in QE1 and QE2 bonds need to be repaid, with interest. By who? By the pump pullers. The failed theory was, this would happen when the economies were booming. Uh-oh. QE1 and QE2: a secretary printed 12 zeros on a piece of paper. Paulson...Geithner...now Bernanke... slowly heading out of Dodge before it becomes apparent to everybody what a collossal blunder this was. Yellen's solution? "More zeros!" The Yellens and Krugman's et all focus exclusively on policies that run economies only downhill. They don't acknowledge the role of risk in running uphill. The call it 'pump priming' but they've clearly never actually primed a pump; after you prime it, you must actually pump it. Otherwise, all you've got is a siphon, and eventually all the water has run downhill... And so, we get there; to the bottom of every hill imaginable.

Isn't it 'present money' in exchange for 'future value' = 'future money principal plus interest?' The 'money' in the future actually does exist -- it circulates and recirculates. We pay back credit over time by diverting flows of income (we pull on pump handles in the future-- we create new value-- and by doing so, we circulate money -- it flows over time as an income stream, generated by us pulling on pump handles.) The 'money' circulates-- but what is real is the value. We don't borrow money currently because we want money, we want the value in the present that money can buy in the present. The value we create -- in the future-- to get the money (could be old money recirculated in the economies) doesn't exist yet. The money is a value-proxy, a medium of accounting trasnfer based on IOUs. (When you are holding money, you effectively have an anoymous IOU in your hand. It's current value doesn't matter if you yourself offered up an IOU to get it-- credit-- or took it from savings -- past pulls on the pump handle, deferred value consumption. hat only matters to you, since you made a commitment to pay back your IOU. But the person handong over value in exchange for your IOU has no immediate sense of whether it is from your credit account or your savings account; in his hands, it is now an IOU for value. So, as you say, credit is like a hole in current value. But savings is the opposite -- it is like a pile(the opposite of a hole.) It represents -past- value that was not immediately consumed by you. You accepted IOUs for past value, and put those IOUs in savings. So in the economies as a whole, there is no net 'hole' as long as credit is balanced by savings+investment. Which is disturbing, when we consider there is only private savings and investment to balance the sum of all private+public credit. There is no such thing as public savings(with rare excepions--local school district capital fund accounts.) Modern profligate governments spend everything they tax and then some! The 'normal economies' alchemy is as follows: 1] Young consume credit, offering a claim on value they will create in the future. 2] Middle age save/invest excess current value, to save for their future. 3] The old live off their savings. Most -real- value deteriorates; when the Middle Age defer excess present value and try to convert it into an aqctual future value, the way that can be done on a fair accounting basis is through the alchemy of balanced savings/investment and credit. We are all, normally, all of us, all of the above at different stages in our lives. It is an assembly line of magic that converts deferred present value (which is finite, which will not last forever)into an actual future value. Compare with just shoving dolalrs under a mattress. That results in a little bit of deflation at first, followed by a little but of inflation later, but this does not net out to 'zero', it nets out to loss of value in the economies over time, because of the Universe and its harsh entropic rules. When most value stands still, it deteriorates. Future effort must be exerted just to break even. This is why interest exists. Economies could no more outlaw 'interest' than they could outlaw 'depreciation.' Paying back credit with interest does not create any 'hole' in our economies money supply; we simply pull on pump handles and circulate money. Our income is not a static pile of cash; our income is a flow of money past our pump station over time. We divert a fraction of that flow to our static overhead savings tanks(to accumulate past pulls of the pump handle/IOUs for value), our static overhead credit tanks(to restore available credit and reduce interest payments). When we pay principal and interest, money doesn't leave the economic system-- it is effectively transferred from the current accounts of debtors to debt holders-- from those who used credit in the past to those who offered what could have been savings/investment. No 'hole' in the money supply. Just circulation of effort/value via value-proxies(money.) Until...the government inserts itself and fined creative ways to tax everybody. There is a bypass at the exit of our pump stations that goes to government, as taxes. The government, along with us and a portion of what remains after net in/out to savings and credit, all go to the turbine stations to consume value. These are businesses/vendors/the marketplace. At the discharge of the turbines is another bypass, that gets sent back to government. These are business taxes. The government can spend this bypass again. (You and I just need to pump harder at our pump stations...) Business owners pay costs and pay workers and pay themselves with the flow that is left net of the government business tax bypass, and this is what is recirculated at the inlet of the pumps. We convert that into spendable cash/water by pulling on pump handles. Business owners also pull at pump handles, but their return is not guaranteed as so much wages per pump pull. They pull at their own pump stations and also build pump and turbine stations at risk, in order for an opportunity at unlimited ROI. But that isn't guaranteed to be positive, or worth the effrot or risk. The Fed acts like a (leaky) boiler feedwater valve. New current accounts/cash shows up in the credit tanks of individuals(and government, when it sells Treasury bonds to the Fed that pump pullers will someday pay off, plus interest). The FED can't inject water into its won spendable current accounts and spend it at the trubines, however, it can only hold debt. Our Fed 'leaks' because it returns 'interest' back the government to spend at the turbine stations. That is one source of endemic inflation.

Putin patted Obama on the head and told him "I'll take care of the cleanup in Syria, you can go back to endlessly campaigning." Obama was dismissed by a meateater, and totally outmaneuvered on the world stage. The world is not about to see any Cyrillic writing on the bbls being taken out of Syria, because the Russians are over-seeing the cleanup. We say we care about the proliferation of CBN in these countries. Then...does it matter where the CBN came from? We assuming all this stuff was all home grown in Syria? On what possible basis? It could have come from multiple sources in that axis (Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea.) And... Putin just patted Obama on the head and told him to never mind, because Russia will 'oversee' the cleanup. But hovels are going to need to bounce somewhere in the world to smooth over the hurt feelings and face rubbed in it pwning. Better go after some dark ager in Somalia, then throw another parade, call it a day. It's ALL related; if Putin hadn't have saved Obama from himself, and Obama had unilaterally bombed some dunes in Syria and declared victory, then the recent spate of attacks would have been spraypainted as 'reaction' to the unilateraly bombings by Obama. But Putin saved Obama from himself, and instead, the shootings in Nairobi just seem like ramdomly pointless ... training exercises. Inneffective symbolic half-action, however, is just like taking only half your prescription of anti-biotics; what survives to come back and bite you is stronger than before. And that is at most what amateur hour is going to bring us.

Actually, let me amend that a little; if the IOU horder puts the IOUs under a mattress, and does not convert them to savings/investment(where they will be returned to circulation in the economies), then the horder creates a little current deflation(by removing IOU demand from the current value-surplus economies) ...balanced in the future by a little inflation(by adding IOU demand to the future value-deficit economies.) If the horder was the only actor, the net-net would be zero except for the tipping of the scales that the universe provides: all value deteriorates over time. Standing still equates to loss of value; we need to pull on pump handles just to stay even. And so, because he did not avail himself of the savings/investment mechanism, the net-net is not zero, but on the whole, a loss of actual value, guaranteed by the universe and its entropic boundary condition. Note that isn't what happens -- either to someone smart enough to create significant excess wealth or the economies at large-- when someone converts their deferred present consumption to savings/investment. At least-- in healthy, circulating economies. Equities are a kind of self-modulatable exposure to risk/reward. We can expose ourselves to equities at any level we want -- 0 to 100% of discretionary spending. But equities are a transfer of current accounts from an equity buyer to an equity seller; the current accounts are still in the economies. What is 'compressible' is the current value of the equity. The current accounts are nearly 'incompressible' except for the manipulations of the money supply by the government. So look at QE1 and QE2. $2T 'injected' into the economies. How? A secreatry at treasury prints 12 zeros on a piece of paper. Resulting bond -- a promise to overtax the private economies in the future--is walked over to the Fed window, who agrees to purchase the bond, expecting payback of principal plus interest in the future. (You understand, as a central bank, the Fed literally creates the $2T from nothing; presses a button and creates new current accounts. But it is holding a Bond...that it can only sellback. It can't itself participate in the economies-- spend money it creates from nothing. It is like a boiler feedwater valve, adding/subtracting water to a circulating system based on intelligently managed debt and circulation fo value via value-proxies. It makes sure there are enough value-proxies in the pipes...but can't spend water at the value turbines. It adds the water by holding debt.) Treasure now has $2T in new spendable current accounts , which it shows up with in the private economies, selectively, via crony based chutes and ladders-- Solyndras, GM bailouts, etc.-- to 'stimulate' economies flat on thweir back. Unemployment is high, which suppresses wage inflation, which suppresses, somewhat, price inflation. But the $2T in injected money must compete for the new net value in the economies-- which is, the value of a secretary printing twelve zeros on a piece of paper. Not finding any new value, and unable to adequately fuel inflation, the funny money has no place to go, and so... erupts as inflated stock prices on Wall Street. Main Street, staring at all the unemployment and dusty "For Lease" signs looking kind of ragged after five years of waiting for "jobs, jobs, jobs" is confused by this. How can Wall Street be 'booming' if the economies are largely flat on their back? Because those inflated prices on Wall Street are scored in funny money that found no actual new value in the economies. They do not represent increased value in those companies, but rediced valuation of the current accouints being thrown at constant or decreasing value companies on Wall Street. And the government cheerleaders point to these 'record highs' as if they were good news! With irony, those with the most savings(geting hosed by what inflation is occurring)are also the same people with the most equities(getting the benefit of artificially inflated stock prices in their portfolio.) The very government aparatchiks who foisted this scheme today lament 'the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer' and propose as their solution to endlessly double down on the insanity. So why didn't the increased valuation on Wall Street show up as increased business expansion and new jobs and increased circulation, which was the plan of the QE stimulus(and the only way to claw back the $2T as new taxes when the piper shows up to be paid.) Because private sector risk takers have -seen- what this out of all control government did to the GM bondholders, what it did with the SOlyndras and Curt Schilling Studio 38s(state of RI getting into the act)on ad infinium. No risk taker in his right mind, in this left wing over-run environment, is going to willingly pre-pay his own ransom. The left's theory is that the greedy rich can't help themselves and will invest anyway, seeking profits. Well...how is that theory working out so far? Five years not enough to figue this out? Will it take ten years? Twenty years? Because in the meantime, who is it that is sweating the lousy results and taking it up the butt? That is the surprising face of 'social justice' these days, not at all like it looked in the brochures going in. regards, Frediano

Your analysis comes late to the process. Here is your same lament, in other words: In a world with a sound money supply, someone accumulates wealth by deferring consumption of created/offered value; they end up holding IOUs for value offered to the economies. These IOUs themselves have a nominal value-- the value you are talking about above. But what is missing in your analysis is, the value representred by the IOUs they end up holding-- IOUs that have been paid by the economies in exchange for value offered/released to the economies. So, what you are saying is also this: what happens when somebody with excess deferred present consumption holds their IOUs and takes them out out of the marketplace. (That isn't what happens when someone places them into savings/investments; you are talking 'bury under the mattress.') If we stare only at the value of the value-proxies(which in this world, have a nominal value in and of themselves)we reach your lament. But if we look at the value in the economies, we see deflation (fewer dollars chasing actual value.) To the extent their actions inflate the value of the value proxies, they also deflate the value proxies chasing value. So the answer to your question is, what happens is not much. ANd in any case, this actor can't act on his attempted manipulations except by ending the manipulation. But moot, in large, complex economies. Nobody's got that big a lever to fatfinger the economies...except government itself, and it has. How savings/investment actually works in healthy economies; 1] We have limited credit. There is a maximum amount of debt we can take on. 2] Credit is current spending in exchange for a claim on future creation of value-- value that doesn't exist yet. 3] The cost of debt is reduced available credit, plus interest over time. 4] Credit is future pulls on the pump handle. 5] Savings is deferred current spending. It is the offering of defeered current value, in exchange for future demand value, plus interest. 6] Savings/investment is past pulls on the pump handle. Most value deteriorates over time. (Food, shelter, clothing, cars...) Becomes less valuable over time. That is not a nefarious plot, that is the Unverse, as it is. How does deferred present value get projected into the future-- saved-- to be redeemed as an actual value in the future? That value in the future doesn't exist yet, and it doesn't 'keep' over time. Watch carefully. This is how it is done. 7] When we are young, we avail ourselves to credit, and consume present value in exchange for future pulls of the pump handle. We consume our available credit by cashing in our ability to create value in the future. We pay our debt back to restore available credit. We do that by pulling on a pump handle over time. We work, we create value in the future. 8] When we are middle aged, we defer present spending by saving for our future. We lend present value to those seeking credit. 9] When we are old, we live off the earnings of our savings. The value we deferred -- when we were middle aged-- no longer exists. The value we consume when we are old is being created newly by the young, in the current economies. The balance between the above is the alchemies that convert persihable present value into actual future value, without perverting the economies. As long as credit is balanced by savings/investment, the economies are not perverted and it is win-win all around. We are all, each of us, in those roles at various times in our lives. THis scheme should not be mani[pulated to be a massive transfer of wealth form one generation to the next-- which is what would happen if the above was permitted to proceed out of all balance. Enter the government and the spectacle of boundless public debt. Take the big gulp as you realize that the above only works without perverting the economies if the total of credit is balances by the total of savings/investment, and then ask yourselves...if there is public debt, when is there ever public savings(...of taxes aimed at the private sector!) Government spends all it taxes AND THEN SOME NOT A LITTLE. (Exception: local school district capital equipent funds...rarely, locally, there is government 'savings' of tax reciepts. Not worth mentioning except to point out how rare it is.) WHen a private entity takes on debt, incentive is created in the future to payoff that debt, reduce interest payments, restore available credit. When public debt is taken on, not a single human being anywhere on earth wakes up the next day with any incentive to do anything at all. Is the sum of all (private+public)debt balanced by the sum of all private savings/investment? The public debt is 'unlimited.' And so, the systemic perverison of our economies, a hidden tax on all of us, young, middle aged, old, rich, poor. Public debt is seen to be a pure -deinvestment- in future economies; all that is projected into the future is debt obligation, not incentives. Those de-invested in futures eventually arrive(and are here today.) There is no similar 'alchemy' except as follows: the incalculable benefit, for example, of having won WWII and defeated(for a moment)totalitarianism in the world. This was not a benefit provided -by- government, it was a benefit administered by government. It was the people of America who paid the bills with blood and treasure, not politico aparatchiks cruising Georgetown Bistros currently taking all the credit as their excuse to implelemt a new Totalitarianism once fought against by this nation. Value-proxies are not value, and even nominally so in Gold based economies. But fiat money is subject to far more gaming(which gave birth not only to the 'financial industry' but to schemes in government itself. For example, when the Fed turns over 'profits' as interest to the Treasury to spend, that is pure running of the printing presses; a non-leaking central bank would simply return that interest to its own current account balance, so that the next time it bought a bond of last resort and had to manufacture current accounts from 'nothing', it would need to do less of that. Returning the 'from nothing' generated interest to treasury to spend in the private economies is systemic leakage in the functioning of a central bank (83B last year) which is identical in all respects to simply running the printing presses. I'd be more concerned about what is actually occurring than hypotheticals about individuals trying to corner marketplaces by offering value to the economies and then hording IOUs. regards, Frediano

I can't believe folks are so missing the point, which is 2014. There is a gamble here; some say it is Cruz gambling. I don't think that's anywhere near a done deal. We can say that all we want in the coming weeks, but Ground truth is heading our way at lightspeed, and no amount of spin is going to hide it. The implementation of this thing is just about to hit the fan. (For example, I just got my notice this week that my provider is dropping me as of Jan 1, with the helpful suggestion that I go seek one of these not even up and running 'exchanges', and don't let the screen door slam on my ass on the way out.) I don't take so much as a vitamin pill every day; I have no prescriptions, and haven't had a claim in a decade. I have(had)a high deductible plan that covers nothing but catastrophic coverage. I pay my wife's few ordinary bills out of pocket. My sons are no longer on our plan. I've provided HI through my business since the 80s. You think I blame my provider for this? Or do I blame the current heavy fatfingerers of their industry? So, the 'gamble' is, as this nationwide cluster fuck unfurls over the next 12 months that it is going to be wildly popular with America-- that, the Grand Designers of this hastily thrown together nonsense got anywhere near to getting it right on this scale. The gamble is that this thing --already crippled and leaking and delayed ,,,, is going to be anything but an unmitigated cluster fuck as it transitions from pie in the sky just talking about it to actual rubber hitting the road. What side of that gamble would you want to be on, given the track record of these complete dufuses? In 2014, will there be any confusuon over who is behind this cluster fuck, and who tried to save America from it? THis latest high profile action in COngress makes it crystal clear who the perps are. They will either be taking big bows to widespread applause in 2014 for getting it right, or they will be run out of town on pikes. And now, the advocates, after talking abput how great this thing is going to be, can all go pray for some kind of miracle out of nowere. 1994 is going to seem like it was a WFP meeting after 2014.

Jerry, I agree, generally, that the "germ theory of disease" is necessary but not sufficient. The Black Death only killed 25% to 33% of the people in Europe. Apparently two-thirds to three-quarters were healthy enough to resist, or to otherwise avoid getting bitten by the fleas. As noted, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 that killed over half a million in the USA only killed less that one-half of one percent of the population. As suggested here, also, just because Typhoid Mary Mallon made other people sick does not necessarily require that her rights be violated. So maybe we should do nothing about disease except to haul out the dead. By the way, just for the record, I can count on one hand the number of times in the last 20 years that I missed work because I was sick. It's been 20 years since I had a case of influenza. Over the course of my life, I might have missed a day or two every couple of three years, depending how and what, given that I was living in the midwest where cold, wet winters and springs are the norm. But I have always taken lots of vitamins, eaten right, and exercised. When I do feel sick, I am a big fan of vitamin C and chicken soup; and whatever common colds I get are typically short and mild. Or maybe, the reasonable recommendations would be to recognize that in an age of HIV, STD, H1N1, mutagenic, anti-biotic resistant, genetically tailored organisms, bio-weapons, anthrax attacks, brain eating amoebas, ebola virus, and over half of humanity crammed into cities of 10 and 20 millions, that really, people who are sick should be quarantined because no one has a right to infect other people. Coming to work sick is the initiation of force. No one here addressed the problem of Hepatitis A in the food service industry. If germs are everywhere and if people who are sick should just get over it, then, there would be no legal sanction for making people sick with poor sanitation in food service. Again, that stands as yet another reductio ad absurdum to the laissez faire theory of public health. While it was claimed that coming to work sick with the flu is not the same thing as releasing a vial of H1N1 in a bus station, no standard was offered for differentiating the two actions. You might say that the terrorist who releases Spanish Flu has a motive to harm others, but how do you know that your infected co-worker does not? It was said that an employer cannot inspect everyone's cavities. However, it is common sense that the common cold - any pathogenic disease, really - runs a course and the stage of communicability is observably obvious. For the employer not to act is to make the employer an accessory to the crime. "For the employer not to act is to make the employer an accessory to the crime." That such nonsense is entertained in this world, and is entertained widely, is exactly why I'm glad I acted the way I did 30 yrs ago. I take heart at all the idiot employees that I've never exposed to other idiot employees, and hope they find themselves in healthier environs as a consequence. I know I have..

Right... and ... Many of them are Black or Hispanic and 300 of those are millionaires. Premise granted here: Also, the corporation has helped create hundreds of black millionaires. In 2007, the National Black McDonald’s Operators Association had a membership of more than 300 African American owners who operated 1,300 restaurants with collective sales of $2.7 billion. The group was co-founded by Roland Jones, among the first black McDonald’s executives. He joined the company in the mid-1960s. In November, Jones told the Los Angeles Times: “McDonald’s has made more African American millionaires than everyone else. … We are into the second and third generation now of owners.” - Madame Noire online here while warning about obesity. Basically, the Motley Fool writer, Rick Munnariz just tosses out stuff to read. Read his Motley Fool bio here. He does not need to be right: he only needs to be interesting for a day. Basically, the University of Miami has a fine football team. Mike, need a : after the http in his bio link.

Drones fall under the classification of 'limited strikes.' They are too easily accepted by the population. We think of them as effective, because all we are risking is hardware. SOmebody packs their lunch, sits at a console and plays video games, conducts war over the horizon, drives home at 5:00 to play with the kids. But it allows our nation, on our behalf, to be wreckless with force, in undeclared constant war, with little drag on the process. Right now, this very moment, do Americans realize how many drones are deployed worldwide in our name? 10s? 100s? 1000s? 10000s? The answer is no doubt 'classified' but is also no doubt neither 10's nor 100's... And coming to a neigborhood near you. Look up the unclassified Lockheed Martin "Audacity" program, and check out the second page of the brochure. The image is of a town in the UK near Farnborough, UK airbase... Indeed; who put the 'city' in Audacity? Speaking of drag on the process, don't be fooled by the giant Global Hawk in the background; more like http://www.draganfly.com/ Unintended consequences of letting our government wage undeclared war in our name.

Completely agree. According to the one (1) [Ellen ] book that I have read about Patton's troops that were supposedly "wasted" by his "blood and guts" tactics, alledged that he apparently had the lowest per capita casualties of any comperable unit sized unit in WWII. A... My father(deceased in 2009 in his 90s) was initially in 5th armored, which was all but destroyed in Holland, and finished the war in Patton's 2nd Armored, so I benefitted from Patton's tactics. My father returned from the war, and a result was me.

I agree; should be a high hurdle to act, and then when that hurdle is reached, the perps and their hovels need to be bouncing in the air as hard and as fast as can possibly be made to happen. It should be an awful, terrible thing when that hurdle is reached. As terrible as we can make it and then some, so that it is effective in achieving the high hurdle goal, and so for as brief a time as is humanly possible-- not drawn out. I think an unintended consequence of embracing the flawed concepts of 'limited war' and 'limited strikes' etc is, not only are they inneffective and counter productive, but they increase the liklihood of our national acceptance of 'limited war' and 'limited strikes.' They are what I call 'gesture megapolitics.' NO FLY ZONES. Missions to Africa where our only mission is to protect ourselves in uniform in front of folks desperate for protection. If we're not going to put boots onto the throats of perps, then don't go; we can throw more effective parades safely at home, and instead of actually demonstrating our unwillingness to act effectively, we would at least keep that fact well hidden and he question, if any, unanswered. Our inneffective actions overseas are -reassuring- the enemies of freedom, not discouraging them from future aggression. After decades -- long since Vietnam, when we -should- have learned the lesson-- perhaps it is finally starting to sink in. This nation has finally grown tired of ill defined inneffectual limited actions that produce no positive outcomes. If we're going to do it, then do it. If not, then don't. This unilateral Third Way/half assed declaration of 'limited' engagement nonsense is somebody smoking dope. It is naive, not nuanced.

"Capitalism" has been redefined in modern times to be equal to "the financial industry." "Capitalists" are today folks like the 'investment analyst" author of this article. Value proxies are not value. The fundamental relationship between value proxies and value in our economies has been totally gamed-- not only by 'the financial industry', but by government itself. We are at the value-less bottom of every hill, staring at the 0s piling up behind our value-less-value proxies. We have lazied our way into a cul de sac. "Investment analysts" are helping to lead us to a world where $100B in capital is thrown at a Facebook to employ 3400 webmonkeys.

McDonalds is practically an extended social service. What this article is saying is, "Let's push the bottom rung of the nation right off the ladder, and replace the labor at McDonalds with the next desperate rung." What some think is going to happen is, the bottom desperate rung is going to get a much needed raise and some relief-- we pat ourselves on the back for our compassion for suggesting that others pay them more. What will happen instead is, the bottom desperate rung will suddenly be competing with folks who used to think $7hr was too little to pursue, but who now marginally think $15hr is worth it. If employers are forced, as a minimum, to hire $15/hr labor, then that is who is going to get the jobs...and the former lowest rung on the ladder gets thrown to the curb. This is Penguin armed constructivist folly at its finest. (Constructivist: something called "S"ociety is built by treating individuials as Tinker Toys to be arranged by clueless paternalistic elites.)

He's identified a huge opportunity to move in on McDonalds and clean up, by going into the business and offering his employees $15/hr. All that is left to ponder is, why isn't he moving in on this sure thing? The world is overflowing with capital looking for sure things. You mean he's not? He's just talking about it? Is that what an investment 'advisor' does? Talk about sure things without putting his own skin in the game?

The problem isn't limited to just the failures in Africa....the problem is, the message those failures send to every two bit thug in the entire world. Lessons not only not learned, but ... catastrophic for the West lessons learned by the thugs. The West can (and must) act selectively, not broadly-- making it all the more important that when it does act, it does so effectively-- with overwhelming force, with absolute certainty in the outcome. Else, by acting inneffectively in front of the whole world , the West aggravates the need in the future to act. Better to do less-- and do it effectively -- then to attempt more and do it poorly. The West -was already deployed- into Somalia. The West -was already deployed- into Rwanda. Then what? We thought we could finesse the show of force into an exercise only? Our nervous deployment of force-- our unilateral wish to make these things only a -show- of force-- 'limited' strikes, and so on, is entirely counterproductive and themselves accelerants of geopolitical chaos. What the West needs to do -- if it is not already way too late to dig out of its credibility hole -- is to have a very high hurdle for action, but when that hurdle is reached, to act decisively, with overwhelming force. Not to fight 'limited' conflicts, but to enter them with overwhelming force as an 800 lb gorilla-- to not even pause to pick up the pieces in its wake, to humanely end them at the earliest possible opportuity because of that overwhelming force. To act credibly...and so, minimize the need for future deployments of force, because of that credibility. A lack of credible use of force is precisely the invitation for ever more need to deploy force. We are too quick to act...and too unwilling to act decisively when we do act. We want it both ways. Example: Jimmy Carter sending F15s to Saudi Arabia during Gulf crisis, then announcing to world "Don't worry---they aren't armed." (!?!?!?!?!?!!?) Sending armored APCs to Rwanda ... months late, because we needed to paint them all white. Why? To show how benign a vehicle with a mounted M2/.50 cal can be? Who are these people who think like this?

Bush 41 to Saddam, after Saddam takes Kuwait: "This aggression will not stand." Bush 41, wih a coalition of international forces, boots Saddam out of Kuwait. The Road to Basra fleeing North is a turkey shoot-- a brutal boot on the throats of the perps. Credibility. Look how long that credibility lasted; it was immediately squandered in Somalia. We go in all 'Project Restore Hope', get bloodied, then flee, apologizing, "We don't really mean it; Africa, you are on your own." Every two bit thug in the world-- including Saddam, who was just kicked out of Kuwait, is reassured. The West is the West after all; Gulf War I was an abberration. The West really doesn't mean it. This is the Western disease, since Vietnam. Reagan in Beirut. We're here only for a show of force...not actual force. Bloody us, and these colors not only run, but in style-- in massive C5 Galaxys. When we enforce 'No Fly Zones' in Iraq in our 30 million dollar fighter planes, it is mainly to take pictures of Saddam's forces rolling up on those who we promised we'd have their back when they revolt against a tyrant. This is not a defect of our military, but of the clueless civilian command who abuses it from afar. For another brief moment -- 2003, credibility was restored. But the hand wringing, nervous propitiation and apologies and self internal flaggellation soon reassured the thugs "The West we know is back; they really don't mean it. The West is ... emminently doable." And, here we are today, throwing our crabspreadfests at Renaiissance Weekend events, tsk-tsk-tsking about the M.E., and pretending that we'll be able to face down in Baltimore what we were unwilling to face down in Baghdad. The Western Disease is, a unilateral desire to get on with modernity unmolested and unchallenged, as if freedom was free. We are content to yield 99% of the world to thugs, as long as the thin, resort crust that surrounds those interntional airports -- what AMericans call 'overseas' -- remain open and in business. As if.