the b**** is toast...

[moralist]

15 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

You know how much wealth Warren Buffet has created?

None.

Why is that, anyone?

--Brant

(free trip to Yuma for the first correct answer--or a fur-lined bathtub)

He doesn't produce anything.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, moralist said:

He doesn't produce anything

Greg

That's correct. He is a brilliant aggregator of wealth producers to the great benefit of his shareholders. If he hadn't done that the wealth would have still been produced, the economy and its technologies would be the same today. This is not to knock him, only classify him. He belongs in the same camp as JP Morgan who did the same sort of thing by creating US Steel. Carnegie was a producer. Rockefeller and Ford too. Gates and Jobs. The guy driving a truck delivering things.

There can be a case or rationalization made that Buffet did produce something somehow. For instance, he buys a company outright and puts it in his stable. That company might then be able to borrow money easier and more cheaply to expand its business because of Berkshire's very high credit rating.

Since you are rather close to Yuma, I'll let you hitchhike. (I sold the fur-lined bathtub to an idiot.)

--Brant

enjoy!

[Jon Letendre]

By this reasoning, I don't understand why the guy driving the truck is a producer.

Can't I give him the same Buffett analysis: Someone else will drive the truck if he didn't, so there won't be any additional production if he drives compared to if he doesn't drive the truck. 

Truck driver: We know I delivered the goods in tact on time, no one else did that. Someone else may have crashed it and lost all the goods.

Buffett: no one else owned that asset through that perilous preiod. Someone else may have lost it all. What we know is that it thrived through that perilous period, with me steering it. You didn't see what I did to steer right, so you imagine I did nothing any different than any one else would have done.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Buffett is a producer. And a big one in the capitals marketplace.

He produces stable, predictable capital in the marketplace (where anything goes or can go) and if that isn't productive, I don't know what is.

I bash him for government cronyism (which is his sleazy side), but not because I somehow believe the capitals market is inherently nonproductive.

It isn't.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Oop...

I think I just said the same thing Jon did.

 

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

Of course, his varied investments and work cannot be treated the same. Buying 100 shares doesn't get you any say in management, so you couldn't say you steered anything. But he has always owned and/or steered companies whole, as well, to my knowledge, such as Geico Ins.

And insurance is productive because it allows purchase of cars by people and equipment and tools by business, that they could not afford to purchase if it meant total exposure for them.

[moralist]

Do you know that Geico stands for?

Government Employee Insurance COmpany

That's what it originally was.

Greg

 

[Jon Letendre]

Brant, a lot of people have "bought a company and put it in the stable" and then all the top management left and in the morning it wasn't in the stable. They didn't fix it in time, competitors ate them alive. "We'll just hire someone to do it" turned out to be wayyy too blithe.

You have to count all the boats, as one of our late posters used to say, not just the full ones, but also the ones that come back empty and also the ones that don't come back at all.

[moralist]

23 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

Of course, his varied investments and work cannot be treated the same. Buying 100 shares doesn't get you any say in management, so you couldn't say you steered anything. But he has always owned and/or steered companies whole, as well, to my knowledge, such as Geico Ins.

And insurance is productive because it allows purchase of cars by people and equipment and tools by business, that they could not afford to purchase if it meant total exposure for them.

Jon, you're talking about services in contrast to products. Services can help producers to make their goods.

Greg

[moralist]

The b**** is toast...

 

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/281554-clinton-email-headache-is-about-to-get-worse

[Brant Gaede]

Buffet did not buy bad managements.

--Brant

back to the thread topic

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, moralist said:

Services can help producers to make their goods.

Greg,

People produce services and people produce goods. Productive services do not spring into existence magically without systems and procedures and these require just as much brain-power and just as much correct physical execution (however great or minimal) as manufacturing. They are produced by humans beings. 

The producers (goods and services) create wealth. Freeloaders consume wealth (goods and services) without creating more.

If you think a service is not productive, I guess it depends on which dictionary you use. 

I, for one, think the correct division is with freeloaders, thieves and so on.

Michael

[moralist]

50 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

People produce services and people produce goods.

Of course, Michael. I wasn't putting one above the other, just describing how one helps the other. I produce services as well when I do troubleshooting and repairs.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, moralist said:

Of course, Michael. I wasn't putting one above the other, just describing how one helps the other. I produce services as well when I do troubleshooting and repairs.

Greg

Your scornful remarks about people who work for a wage  tend to give the wrong impression.....

[Jon Letendre]

8 hours ago, moralist said:

Do you know that Geico stands for?

Government Employee Insurance COmpany

That's what it originally was.

Greg

 

Wow. That is so fucking fascinating.

[Jon Letendre]

8 hours ago, moralist said:

Jon, you're talking about services in contrast to products. Services can help producers to make their goods.

Greg

I am? Wow.

They can? Holy shit, wow.

[moralist]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Your scornful remarks about people who work for a wage  tend to give the wrong impression.....

Bob, your view is that of a government educated employee... not of an independent private sector Capitalist entrepreneur. You said it yourself, you're not a Capitalist.

The fact that you're not explains why we each have totally different views.

 

Greg

[moralist]

On ‎5‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 6:35 PM, Jules Troy said:

He just manipulates the markets?

He definitely plays the markets...

I personally refuse to gamble in any of the leveraged debt markets, because one person's profit cannot be realized unless someone else takes a loss to pay for it.

Zero Sum is NOT Capitalism.

Zero Sum produces NOTHING.

Capitalism is when two parties voluntarily exchange whereby BOTH are better off for the exchange than they were before.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

8 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Wow. That is so fucking fascinating.

Around 1951 Buffet got on a train in NYC and went to Washington where GEICO was located to find out about the insurance business. The headquarters was locked up for the weekend but one guy was there and answered the door and explained to him the nature of what GEICO did. Buffet then wrote an article in a business publication recommending GEICO as an investment. (Buffet was about 21yo,) He learned about the float--that is, the customer buys insurance and pays up front but the payout is in the indefinite future. This gives the insurance company use of free money for investments. If the company is very well managed in regard to insurance risk and investment risk and other standard business risks it can offer lower premiums to its customers undercutting the competition. That's why you can save 15% or more with GEICO.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

There are three types of productive activity by one of many metrics: 1) that which maintains consumable wealth (the food you eat and the energy you use, etc.); 2) that which increases wealth overall in an economy through new stuff or new means to stuff; and 3) that which redistributes wealth, some of it honorably, some not. Buffet is mostly this last category and mostly honorably. Because wealth in this country increases overall over time there is no overt sense of him making anyone poorer. However, Berkshire Hathaway has greatly out performed the economy compared to all the publicly traded companies. During this time investors were free to know and evaluate what he was doing and how well and buy his company's stock--or not.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

7 hours ago, moralist said:

He definitely plays the markets...

I personally refuse to gamble in any of the leveraged debt markets, because one person's profit cannot be realized unless someone else takes a loss to pay for it.

Zero Sum is NOT Capitalism.

Zero Sum produces NOTHING.

Capitalism is when two parties voluntarily exchange whereby BOTH are better off for the exchange than they were before.

Greg

You own 100 shares of a company but you need money for an operation so I buy the shares from you. You get the operation and I get the shares. The shares then double in value because another company puts in a bid to buy the company. All profit, but in different ways. Is this capitalism? Is this "Zero Sum"? Was "nothing" produced? WAS IT WRONG? Was it gambling? Was it something you would never do?

--Brant

there is production and there is production and if you don't steal you produce--something, and that something may be a monetary intangible exchanged for a tangible freely and knowledgeably given (there is also stealing from the stealers like Ragnar did)

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

There are three types of productive activity by one of many metrics: 1) that which maintains consumable wealth (the food you eat and the energy you use, etc.); 2) that which increases wealth overall in an economy through new stuff or new means to stuff; and 3) that which redistributes wealth, some of it honorably, some not. Buffet is mostly this last category and mostly honorably. Because wealth in this country increases overall over time there is no overt sense of him making anyone poorer. However, Berkshire Hathaway has greatly out performed the economy compared to all the publicly traded companies. During this time investors were free to know and evaluate what he was doing and how well and buy his company's stock--or not.

--Brant

Very nice distinctions.  I assumes by "maintains" a you mean grows, or extracts or processes. 

[BaalChatzaf]

8 hours ago, moralist said:

Bob, your view is that of a government educated employee... not of an independent private sector Capitalist entrepreneur. You said it yourself, you're not a Capitalist.

The fact that you're not explains why we each have totally different views.

 

Greg

I am self educated. I am primarily an autodidact.  The only time I was educed by government agencies was when I learned basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

I have been primarily an autodidact in math and physical science since  I was 14 years old.  I taught myself calculus and group theory when I was in the 9 th grade which put me at least half a light year ahead of all my teachers except one,  Gabe Helman,  who had a PhD in biology. 

By the way the math and physics taught in government funded schools is the same as that taught in private schools.  

The rest of the stuff like "social studies"  I paid very little attention to.  The bulk of the input I get in government funded schools is all STEM related. 

The values I learned in life,  I learned at home from my mom and dad.  I didn't need no steeeeenking government schools for that.   Jews learn the difference between right and wrong from the parents and from righteous scholars and sages,  not from government agents.

By the way, Mr. Capitalist,  you are currently using technology invented or derived from the thinking of physical scientists and engineers who were educated at Government Schools.   Without these government funded folks you would be living in an unlit hovel along with the rest of us.  That computer  system with which you read this was brought about mostly by government doings and fiat,  paid for by money stolen from taxpayers. 

[moralist]

17 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

You own 100 shares of a company ...

I don't do stocks. Period.

However, I'm just fine with what others choose do as it's their own personally assumed risk and literally none of my business. I assume my own personal risks, but they have absolutely nothing to do with zero sum transfer of wealth leveraged debt market gambling. It's a rigged game when companies instead of spending on productive R and D, are producing nothing buying back their own stocks trying to pump up false value that only collapses when the next bubble collapses taking the suckers down along with it. 

Anyone who wants to take part in that Pump and Dump Fraud, please be my guest. I'll leave you to fight over the chairs when the music stops. 

 

Greg

[moralist]

16 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am self educated.

(shrug) So what, Bob. It has done nothing to alter your becoming the end product of government education in that you will always bear their indelible imprinted mark of an employee on your psyche. This is because the sole purpose of government education is to create employees.

And because I have no government education I'll always have the view of a Capitalist entrepreneur.

...and those two views will always be irreconcilable.

Greg