RoR: Forum

Post 0

Friday, September 19 - 9:29am

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Forgive me if I've been overbearing (by drawing focus to the recent US nationalization of part of the industry). I'll try not to post any more really, really bad news for a while.

It strains me, too.

Ed

Post 1

Friday, September 19 - 9:42am

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There should be at least one person in Washington that stands up and demands to know by what right, by what constitutional power, does this administration double the national debt in one weekend? This is insanity!

There should be calls for impeachment if Bush doesn't back off from this direction. Has he said ANYTHING? Those who own the failing businesses should carry the losses. Why should it even be necessary to point that out?

Ed, you are not being overbearing and there is nothing to apologize for - if we are unlucky, this may yet be the seminal event of the decade - the unwanted turning point - the moment in history where the slope became so slippery that we lost it. No one knows which straw breaks the camels back until it is too late. Especially when the camel handlers are such idiots.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 9/19, 9:46am)

Post 2

Friday, September 19 - 9:45am

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And Rogers' article was dated Sept. 8. We should have a 'Jim Rogers Alert' thread on this board. He's got the best smarts in the business.

Sam

Post 3

Friday, September 19 - 11:23am

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Thanks, Steve and Sam.

Ed

Post 4

Friday, September 19 - 1:13pm

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Please keep posting Ed. I need to know that someone sees that the truth. Even Stephen Moore on the WSJ editorial board is supporting the AIG takeover.

Post 5

Friday, September 19 - 2:16pm

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Jordan Z.,

I blame Sam for getting me on a Jim Rogers kick. It all started when I asked for investment advice for a stupid 401K. Sam probably had my best interests in mind when pointing me to the doom-n-gloom outlook Rogers has for the short- (and middle-)term future of this otherwise-great country. Nevertheless, RoR-ers get to view the fall-out from that.

Sam has shown me the light and I'm just trying to reflect that light all over the place like I'm Chicken Little or something. Did you hear that the sky was falling, too? Yeah, the government tried to prop it up with taxpayer money by inflating this huge bubble and ... and you'll never guess what happened then ... and ... you'll never believe this, not in a million years, but ... but ... the bubble bursted! I know, I know. What a crazy thing to happen! Anyway, the sky is falling. Thought you should know.

:-)

Thanks for the acknowledging encouragement, Jordan.

Ed

Post 6

Friday, September 19 - 3:17pm

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On the debt issue:

I'm not sure if this National Debt Clock is the most current, but I found it to be the most comprehensive (partially itemizes our dwindling savings gains which have heretofore been helping to offset our increasing debts).

According to Rogers, debt held by the public doubled from five to ten trillion in a weekend in August of this year (Fannie/Freddie meltdown) -- this clock doesn't seem to have been able to account for that doubling yet.

Ed

Post 7

Friday, September 19 - 3:35pm

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Congress Lies Low To Avoid Bailout Blame

(Gee, wonder why?)

Investor's Business Daily ran a column by Terry Jones yesterday
pointing at congresses culpability in the current
meltdown and their current evasive behavior.

"Congress says it likely will adjourn this month having done
nothing on the most important issue in America right now:
the financial meltdown from the subprime lending crisis."

Post 8

Friday, September 19 - 3:57pm

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The new names for defaulted mortgages and investments in bankrupted companies: "illiquid mortgages" "illiquid assets".

Post 9

Friday, September 19 - 4:04pm

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I blame Sam for getting me on a Jim Rogers kick.

FYI - Rogers is a regular on Larry Kudlow's daily CNBC show.

Post 10

Friday, September 19 - 6:35pm

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Yeah, I've been following him for years � even before he went on his trip across China by himself on a motor cycle (long ago). He then disappeared and everyone thought he was just quitting the finance game.

Sam

Post 11

Saturday, September 20 - 9:19pm

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Communism and Capitalism are "Unknown Ideals."

Capitalism assumes that we are *not* evolving so for ever and ever, generation after generation, selfish humans will attempt to buy low and sell high.

But if we are evolving then when we reach the highest stage we will work to our maximum ability and only use what we need, without the rewards of private property, and the state will whither away and we will have Communism.

In the meantime what we have is Fascism.

A couple oldies but goodies are:

"America's Emerging Fascist Economy," 1975, Charlotte Twight.

"The Ominous Parallels, The End of Freedom in America," 1982, Leonard Peikoff.

Post 12

Sunday, September 21 - 5:26am

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Dale Reed,

You are way off.

Capitalism assumes that we are *not* evolving so for ever and ever, generation after generation, selfish humans will attempt to buy low and sell high.

But if we are evolving then when we reach the highest stage we will work to our maximum ability and only use what we need, without the rewards of private property, and the state will whither away and we will have Communism.

Capitalism isn't about buying low and selling high. Its about individuals gaining in values equal to the value they create (value on the open free market), and their values being protected from vandals and looters. Its economic justice in equalizing productivity with rewards. It maximizes each individual's motivation to be productive and enables the best to create more. Capitalism always makes sense, Especially when faced with a population of individuals with extremely diverse abilities, skills, competence, and diligence (in other words, a population that contains highly evolved diverse individuals).

Do you not see that communism is a huge waste of resources, terrible for accomplishing any goal other than to have lots of useless people? There is endless need for resources from useless people, they multiply like rabbits when you give them food. Communism isn't an economic system that is better and would work for a more "evolved" or more "ethical" human, instead, its a useless people breeder and a huge waste of resources. Communism might work if every individual was exactly the same: same abilities, skills, competence, and diligence. Then it might actually be true that each individual was as productive as the next, that their rewards would be the same even if it was capitalist... but humans are different, and they will never be the same.

Post 13

Sunday, September 21 - 5:37am

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Communism might work if every individual was exactly the same: same abilities, skills, competence, and diligence. Then it might actually be true that each individual was as productive as the next, that their rewards would be the same even if it was capitalist... but humans are different, and they will never be the same.

In other words, it is factually anti-human... and, as such, immoral...

Post 14

Sunday, September 21 - 6:41am

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In Defense of Dale

Another interpretation (Dale could confirm) of what Dale said is that the collectivists believe that communism is evolution and progress.

That's why they try to call themselves progressives (even though they're adopting something old and stale). Note my kidnapping of the term "progressive free-thinker" in this response to a socialist friend. Earlier, I had floated the proposition to him that he considers himself a progressive free-thinker. As I mean a lot to him as a person (my opinions matter to him), he quickly asked me -- in a Peter Keating sense -- "Do YOU think that's true of me?" I responded "no" and went on to criticize socialists for kidnapping the term progressive from capitalism -- which is truly progressive for man on Earth.

If Dale was merely describing the collectivist mindset -- and that's not going out on a limb considering he directed readers to Peikoff's book -- then what he wrote is not so offensive and wrong after all.

Ed

Post 15

Sunday, September 21 - 7:53am

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"But if we are evolving then when we reach the highest stage we will work to our maximum ability and only use what we need, without the rewards of private property, and the state will whither away and we will have Communism."

I have to assume that this is a joke.

Evolution is the change of gene frequencies in a poulation over time due to the differential survival of offspring. It is not goal oriented. A species might eveolve better sight or lose its eyes over time, depending upon external conditions. Either case is an example of evolution. Parasites, herbivores, and carnivores are just as evolvedd as autotrophs like plants that produce their own energy. What is implied in Dale's statement is that the "highest stage" (according to whom?) is a known end toward which nature is striving. This is silly at best, and mystical in the least.

Post 16

Sunday, September 21 - 8:01am

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What is implied in Dale's statement is that the "highest stage" (according to whom?) is a known end toward which nature is striving. This is silly at best, and mystical in the least.

Worse - that 'higher' is the old saw of the universal collective - anti-individualistic to the core, and in fact a REGRESSION to primordial mentality...

Post 17

Sunday, September 21 - 10:36am

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Dale can surely respond but I'm sure he means that Marx predicted that capitalism would evolve to communism, not that Dale agrees with it. This was a topic of a recent letter to the editor that I made here.

Mr. Tischler states that it was merely a prediction of how communism would finally evolve.

Post 18

Monday, September 22 - 9:05am

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Sorry to have stirred up such a hornet's nest (actually, here in the great northwest, Yellow Jackets are a more fearsome threat) with my post. I was only trying to point out that Jim Rogers misused "Communist."

I think it is important on a "Reason" list to clearly define our terms and explain our assumptions. That was what I was trying to do. Personally I have long defined myself as a "selfish, greedy, capitalist."

Some of you may be interested that today (22 of September, 2008) all over the world, and especially in two former socialist states, people are celebrating my younger brother's seventieth birthday. At least it would have been Dean's birthday if he had not made incorrect assumptions about man's basic nature. Dale

http://deanreed.de/deutsch/start.html

(Edited by Dale Reed on 9/22, 4:06pm)

Post 19

Monday, September 22 - 5:48pm

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Dale, sorry I didn't pick up on that.

-Dean
Communist Conclusion Crusher