Newspeak Alert!

[underdose]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Underdose: A series of excellent posts, thank you.[/quote]

Thank you. Very kind. I’m also deeply grateful for your concrete elaborations. It really helps drive the point home.

[quote=arraya]Money is essentially an abstraction and not constrained by the laws within which material and energy systems must operate. In fact money grows exponentially by the rule of compound interest. Growth based models in finite spaces will fail by definition. They will become canabilistic and unstable before collapse.

A monetary system based on infitite debt growth is not rational. Not even in the ball park.

The invisible hand is a silly superstition on par with santa clause.[/quote]

arraya, I’m puzzled by a couple of things you say. Money grows by compound interest strikes me as an odd claim.

Suppose there is a Lender named Lenny, and a Borrower named Bob. Lenny lends Bob $100 at 10% interest. At the end of two years, Bob owes Lenny $121 dollars. Compound interest at work.

There are essentially two possible extreme outcomes (and degrees in between). 1). Bob pays back in full. 2). Bob defaults.

In scenario 1, Lenny is -$100, +$121, Bob is +$100, -$121. Add it all up, the sum is zero. Net, Lenny +$21, Bob -$21. Money didn’t grow, it just changed hands.

In scenario 2, Lenny is -$100, Bob is +$100. Again, sum zero. It doesn’t matter that Bob may have spent the $100. It transferred from Bob to someone else, maybe Sal the Supplier. Lenny -$100, Bob +$100, -$100, Sal +$100. Still zero. The compound interest only existed on paper and was never paid.

Compound interest only transfers purchase power from one entity to another, it does not make the money supply grow. Right now the US government is on the wrong side of compound interest, transferring purchase power to our creditors.

I’m also with patientrenter concerning your invisible hand/Santa Claus claim. It’s a rather empty dogmatic claim. No one claimed there really is a magical invisible hand. It’s a metaphor, not a myth. My example above of the housing bubble absent government intervention shows the metaphorical invisible hand at work. A shortage of loanable funds causes interest rates to rise, encouraging savings and squeezing out would-be borrowers. The “invisible hand” is just an idiomatic way of describing market forces. Are you suggesting market forces are comparable to Santa Claus? You astutely observe that oil will run out, and when it does (barring we’ve gotten off our oil addiction with alternatives before that day) the price will go through the roof. The “invisible hand” of the oil shortage will stifle consumption by making it prohibitively expensive. Will you call it a myth on that day?

[equalizer]

[quote=Noob]Someone a lot smarter than me made a point regarding regulation that makes sense to me. The economy is clearly and has clearly been regulated–just look at all the sox requirments in place now. Its a joke to think that we have had anything near a “free market”. The current economic problems were not caused by a free market, but by a mis-regulated market. More regulation is not the fix. Why should we trust the same government that mis-regulated the market in the first place to get it right this time around?[/quote]
It is so amusing to hear the tired howls of panic on this board and endless babble about the purest form of imaginary economic bliss. Sure, anyone can see that this year we are adopting some reforms espoused by Ronald Dworkin’s equality of resources theory or the similar Theory of Justice espoused by John Rawls. [natural endowments of intelligence and talent are morally arbitrary and ought not to affect the distribution of resources in society] What do you expect after distribution of wealth (blame Hilton) is used by populists to make that point. You can always bring back the poll tax, but enough.

How about we join the real world and confront reality as it exists here. As long as we have $1000/hr lawyers on Wall St and K St that write the laws, we will NEVER have to be worry about that socialism problem. Who wrote/sponsored the 1996 capital gains home exclusion bill? Who wrote/sponsored the 1999 Gramm bank deregulation bill? Only dem to sign was President Clinton. So this time, this whole mess WAS Clinton’s fault. If just one of these bills had not been signed, we would not have had as big a problem with the banks.

FDIC did not do its job as WAMU was allowed to gamble with taxpayer money. That was not mis-regulation, that was a sign of NO regulation last 10 years thanks to Pres Clinton.

When the incredibly smart lawyers on Wall St are able to write contracts for execs that pretty much guarantee 10M bonuses that come with such an ironclad lock that even felonies will not disgorge that money, why are you people so afraid of the boogeyman? Madoff transfers “his” property to his wife and then says you can’t can’t touch her money and the $100/hr judge says OK, where is the Big Brother? Not in NYC.

Big Brother is in Singapore and Honk Kong with “true” free market. Super low taxes, lax regulations, no protests. What is not to love? Heck Singapore has some simple tax rules such as home tax benefits only for married people, not for single playboy investors. Not going to have too many foreclosures with those kind of rules.

BTW, whose labor contracts were just rewritten? Ford line workers signed on to pay cuts, even if by force; something that most of us would not have believed would ever have happened.

[equalizer]

[quote=Noob]Someone a lot smarter than me made a point regarding regulation that makes sense to me. The economy is clearly and has clearly been regulated–just look at all the sox requirments in place now. Its a joke to think that we have had anything near a “free market”. The current economic problems were not caused by a free market, but by a mis-regulated market. More regulation is not the fix. Why should we trust the same government that mis-regulated the market in the first place to get it right this time around?[/quote]
It is so amusing to hear the tired howls of panic on this board and endless babble about the purest form of imaginary economic bliss. Sure, anyone can see that this year we are adopting some reforms espoused by Ronald Dworkin’s equality of resources theory or the similar Theory of Justice espoused by John Rawls. [natural endowments of intelligence and talent are morally arbitrary and ought not to affect the distribution of resources in society] What do you expect after distribution of wealth (blame Hilton) is used by populists to make that point. You can always bring back the poll tax, but enough.

How about we join the real world and confront reality as it exists here. As long as we have $1000/hr lawyers on Wall St and K St that write the laws, we will NEVER have to be worry about that socialism problem. Who wrote/sponsored the 1996 capital gains home exclusion bill? Who wrote/sponsored the 1999 Gramm bank deregulation bill? Only dem to sign was President Clinton. So this time, this whole mess WAS Clinton’s fault. If just one of these bills had not been signed, we would not have had as big a problem with the banks.

FDIC did not do its job as WAMU was allowed to gamble with taxpayer money. That was not mis-regulation, that was a sign of NO regulation last 10 years thanks to Pres Clinton.

When the incredibly smart lawyers on Wall St are able to write contracts for execs that pretty much guarantee 10M bonuses that come with such an ironclad lock that even felonies will not disgorge that money, why are you people so afraid of the boogeyman? Madoff transfers “his” property to his wife and then says you can’t can’t touch her money and the $100/hr judge says OK, where is the Big Brother? Not in NYC.

Big Brother is in Singapore and Honk Kong with “true” free market. Super low taxes, lax regulations, no protests. What is not to love? Heck Singapore has some simple tax rules such as home tax benefits only for married people, not for single playboy investors. Not going to have too many foreclosures with those kind of rules.

BTW, whose labor contracts were just rewritten? Ford line workers signed on to pay cuts, even if by force; something that most of us would not have believed would ever have happened.

[equalizer]

[quote=Noob]Someone a lot smarter than me made a point regarding regulation that makes sense to me. The economy is clearly and has clearly been regulated–just look at all the sox requirments in place now. Its a joke to think that we have had anything near a “free market”. The current economic problems were not caused by a free market, but by a mis-regulated market. More regulation is not the fix. Why should we trust the same government that mis-regulated the market in the first place to get it right this time around?[/quote]
It is so amusing to hear the tired howls of panic on this board and endless babble about the purest form of imaginary economic bliss. Sure, anyone can see that this year we are adopting some reforms espoused by Ronald Dworkin’s equality of resources theory or the similar Theory of Justice espoused by John Rawls. [natural endowments of intelligence and talent are morally arbitrary and ought not to affect the distribution of resources in society] What do you expect after distribution of wealth (blame Hilton) is used by populists to make that point. You can always bring back the poll tax, but enough.

How about we join the real world and confront reality as it exists here. As long as we have $1000/hr lawyers on Wall St and K St that write the laws, we will NEVER have to be worry about that socialism problem. Who wrote/sponsored the 1996 capital gains home exclusion bill? Who wrote/sponsored the 1999 Gramm bank deregulation bill? Only dem to sign was President Clinton. So this time, this whole mess WAS Clinton’s fault. If just one of these bills had not been signed, we would not have had as big a problem with the banks.

FDIC did not do its job as WAMU was allowed to gamble with taxpayer money. That was not mis-regulation, that was a sign of NO regulation last 10 years thanks to Pres Clinton.

When the incredibly smart lawyers on Wall St are able to write contracts for execs that pretty much guarantee 10M bonuses that come with such an ironclad lock that even felonies will not disgorge that money, why are you people so afraid of the boogeyman? Madoff transfers “his” property to his wife and then says you can’t can’t touch her money and the $100/hr judge says OK, where is the Big Brother? Not in NYC.

Big Brother is in Singapore and Honk Kong with “true” free market. Super low taxes, lax regulations, no protests. What is not to love? Heck Singapore has some simple tax rules such as home tax benefits only for married people, not for single playboy investors. Not going to have too many foreclosures with those kind of rules.

BTW, whose labor contracts were just rewritten? Ford line workers signed on to pay cuts, even if by force; something that most of us would not have believed would ever have happened.

[equalizer]

[quote=Noob]Someone a lot smarter than me made a point regarding regulation that makes sense to me. The economy is clearly and has clearly been regulated–just look at all the sox requirments in place now. Its a joke to think that we have had anything near a “free market”. The current economic problems were not caused by a free market, but by a mis-regulated market. More regulation is not the fix. Why should we trust the same government that mis-regulated the market in the first place to get it right this time around?[/quote]
It is so amusing to hear the tired howls of panic on this board and endless babble about the purest form of imaginary economic bliss. Sure, anyone can see that this year we are adopting some reforms espoused by Ronald Dworkin’s equality of resources theory or the similar Theory of Justice espoused by John Rawls. [natural endowments of intelligence and talent are morally arbitrary and ought not to affect the distribution of resources in society] What do you expect after distribution of wealth (blame Hilton) is used by populists to make that point. You can always bring back the poll tax, but enough.

How about we join the real world and confront reality as it exists here. As long as we have $1000/hr lawyers on Wall St and K St that write the laws, we will NEVER have to be worry about that socialism problem. Who wrote/sponsored the 1996 capital gains home exclusion bill? Who wrote/sponsored the 1999 Gramm bank deregulation bill? Only dem to sign was President Clinton. So this time, this whole mess WAS Clinton’s fault. If just one of these bills had not been signed, we would not have had as big a problem with the banks.

FDIC did not do its job as WAMU was allowed to gamble with taxpayer money. That was not mis-regulation, that was a sign of NO regulation last 10 years thanks to Pres Clinton.

When the incredibly smart lawyers on Wall St are able to write contracts for execs that pretty much guarantee 10M bonuses that come with such an ironclad lock that even felonies will not disgorge that money, why are you people so afraid of the boogeyman? Madoff transfers “his” property to his wife and then says you can’t can’t touch her money and the $100/hr judge says OK, where is the Big Brother? Not in NYC.

Big Brother is in Singapore and Honk Kong with “true” free market. Super low taxes, lax regulations, no protests. What is not to love? Heck Singapore has some simple tax rules such as home tax benefits only for married people, not for single playboy investors. Not going to have too many foreclosures with those kind of rules.

BTW, whose labor contracts were just rewritten? Ford line workers signed on to pay cuts, even if by force; something that most of us would not have believed would ever have happened.

[equalizer]

[quote=Noob]Someone a lot smarter than me made a point regarding regulation that makes sense to me. The economy is clearly and has clearly been regulated–just look at all the sox requirments in place now. Its a joke to think that we have had anything near a “free market”. The current economic problems were not caused by a free market, but by a mis-regulated market. More regulation is not the fix. Why should we trust the same government that mis-regulated the market in the first place to get it right this time around?[/quote]
It is so amusing to hear the tired howls of panic on this board and endless babble about the purest form of imaginary economic bliss. Sure, anyone can see that this year we are adopting some reforms espoused by Ronald Dworkin’s equality of resources theory or the similar Theory of Justice espoused by John Rawls. [natural endowments of intelligence and talent are morally arbitrary and ought not to affect the distribution of resources in society] What do you expect after distribution of wealth (blame Hilton) is used by populists to make that point. You can always bring back the poll tax, but enough.

How about we join the real world and confront reality as it exists here. As long as we have $1000/hr lawyers on Wall St and K St that write the laws, we will NEVER have to be worry about that socialism problem. Who wrote/sponsored the 1996 capital gains home exclusion bill? Who wrote/sponsored the 1999 Gramm bank deregulation bill? Only dem to sign was President Clinton. So this time, this whole mess WAS Clinton’s fault. If just one of these bills had not been signed, we would not have had as big a problem with the banks.

FDIC did not do its job as WAMU was allowed to gamble with taxpayer money. That was not mis-regulation, that was a sign of NO regulation last 10 years thanks to Pres Clinton.

When the incredibly smart lawyers on Wall St are able to write contracts for execs that pretty much guarantee 10M bonuses that come with such an ironclad lock that even felonies will not disgorge that money, why are you people so afraid of the boogeyman? Madoff transfers “his” property to his wife and then says you can’t can’t touch her money and the $100/hr judge says OK, where is the Big Brother? Not in NYC.

Big Brother is in Singapore and Honk Kong with “true” free market. Super low taxes, lax regulations, no protests. What is not to love? Heck Singapore has some simple tax rules such as home tax benefits only for married people, not for single playboy investors. Not going to have too many foreclosures with those kind of rules.

BTW, whose labor contracts were just rewritten? Ford line workers signed on to pay cuts, even if by force; something that most of us would not have believed would ever have happened.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=equalizerWhat do you want Ben to do? Nothing?

Do you want half the annuities to diappear? [/quote]

Yes.

No, but they likely already have. If they have, saying the haven’t isn’t really going to bring them back.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=equalizerWhat do you want Ben to do? Nothing?

Do you want half the annuities to diappear? [/quote]

Yes.

No, but they likely already have. If they have, saying the haven’t isn’t really going to bring them back.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=equalizerWhat do you want Ben to do? Nothing?

Do you want half the annuities to diappear? [/quote]

Yes.

No, but they likely already have. If they have, saying the haven’t isn’t really going to bring them back.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=equalizerWhat do you want Ben to do? Nothing?

Do you want half the annuities to diappear? [/quote]

Yes.

No, but they likely already have. If they have, saying the haven’t isn’t really going to bring them back.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=equalizerWhat do you want Ben to do? Nothing?

Do you want half the annuities to diappear? [/quote]

Yes.

No, but they likely already have. If they have, saying the haven’t isn’t really going to bring them back.

[DWCAP]

why this thread? There are tons of threads on pigg that discuss gold, and where its value is going, and etc etc. And they pick this thread to spam?

[DWCAP]

why this thread? There are tons of threads on pigg that discuss gold, and where its value is going, and etc etc. And they pick this thread to spam?

[DWCAP]

why this thread? There are tons of threads on pigg that discuss gold, and where its value is going, and etc etc. And they pick this thread to spam?

[DWCAP]

why this thread? There are tons of threads on pigg that discuss gold, and where its value is going, and etc etc. And they pick this thread to spam?

[Author]

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