[Borat]

Fair enough, FSD, my example wasn’t a good one. Comparing performance of housing against stocks is probably apples vs. oranges. Most houses just sit there, they don’t produce anything. If someone doesn’t improve them or the areas around them, they should appreciate at or near the rate of inflation over the long haul. Publicly-owned companies are dynamic, they create things and hopefully become more valuable as the business becomes more efficient and expands into new areas, so their returns should be higher. I hadn’t looked at CSCO in a while, I was surprised at how well they recovered!

[Borat]

Yeah, the guy is obviously an idiot. He didn’t make millions holding on to an overpriced asset. He’s like those morons that sold their Cisco stock in 1998. What a fool.

[Borat]

NINJA stands for “No Income, No Job or Assets”. It’s mortage biz talk. And yes, they really give those loans out, or at least they used to when the bubble was in full swing. AKA “liar loans” or “toxic waste”

[Borat]

Some people might still want to buy now. If you have and make a ton of money and just want a place to live and raise your kids I could see it. You can’t optimize every situation. Most of us don’t have that kind of dough but some do.

[Borat]

There’s an old saying, something like, “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”. Anyway, the market was probably overvalued here in SD back in 2001, so just because they called it a few years early they were still right. No one could have predicted that people would be getting 100%+ NINJA loans. Total insanity…

[Borat]

Toyota Camrys are American cars. They’re made in Kentucky. The concept of “American car” vs. “Foreign car” has changed considerably since that book was written, and certainly since the millionaires surveyed had bought their cars. Mazdas and Volvos are now full of Ford parts, and vice versa. Saabs have GM parts, and on and on.

Pontiacs are still crap though.

[Borat]

I think the “telephone” scenario is how the WTC7 collapse news spread from the site of the attack to the BBC news; no way were they a party to any inside information. All it would take is for one person in a fire captain’s outfit to tell some first responders that “The building is coming down — it’s been weakened by the fire. Go tell the other units to get back.” and the story would spread quickly to the emergency crews and media. There were many fire units from all over NYC and as long as his badge was from a different unit, they wouldn’t question his authority. After that, he just takes off his hat and jacket and disappears back into the crowd. No one ever remembers where they first heard the story, they just know that they heard it from someone…

Or maybe it actually did collapse from a fire. I’m no expert, it just seems really suspicious that’s all.

The BBC has conveniently lost their tapes, not because they’re part of any conspiracy, but because they are embarassed. They’ve been shown as being unreliable, they report hearsay without even doublechecking it.

[Borat]

Is the reason you don’t follow him into prison that you lack his principles, or that you don’t think murdering thousands is really all that bad, or because secretly you don’t believe your own ridiculous conspiracy fantasies?

No bgates, the reason is simply that I don’t believe in breaking the law. Two wrongs don’t make a right. This is a nation of laws, not a nation of men. The principled way to effect political change in this country is to engage in informed debate and participate in elections.

You certainly seem motivated to get others to break the law — first an incitement to violence, now a proposal for tax revolt! If I didn’t know you better (I love your software by the way — Windows XP is awesome), I might suspect that you’re an agent provocateur.

[Borat]

You combat this supposed monstrosity not by attempting to…

bgates, I don’t know what country you live in, but here in the USA, we effect political change through informed discussion, elections and the best system of representative government in the world (although it’s not perfect of course). We don’t do it through violence or by simply fleeing when we don’t like the way things are going. Comments like yours are bullying and, I must say, rather un-American!

[Borat]

…in fact, we aren’t there right now either. My source? The former Iraqi information minister – he said so on TV in 2003 so it must be true.

So what you’re saying is that the BBC is as reliable a source of information as Saddam’s state-controlled media?

Ministry of Truth indeed…

Why would anyone mistakenly announce that a 47-story building has fallen down when it has not? It was barely damaged, buildings 3, 5 and 6 were in much worse shape (and they never collapsed either). Just look at the position of WTC7 in the site plan.

Also note that prior to the building’s collapse, the BBC is reporting not only that it collapsed but that it collapsed because it had been weakened by fire (although no skyscraper fire had ever previously resulted in a collapse). I guess there was no need to have an investigation after all, since they knew not only that it fell down but why it did before it even happened.

It’s obvious that the building was supposed to come down a little before 5pm but there was some kind of delay. The press releases went out on schedule but the demolition was 30 minutes late for some reason.

[Borat]

That’s pretty bad, and it reminds me of when Sting used to lead the “Save The Rain Forests” movement. Of course Sting gets to be a famous and wealthy rock star in part because his country cut down all of their trees a long time ago in order to build and advance their country and provide him with a good, safe environment to live in; now he travels to the Amazon to tell the quaint little natives to keep their rain forests intact so that wealthy westerners can come look at them living in their primitive, “natural” state. Many of the people in developing areas just want a car, a fridge, and air conditioning like everyone else.

This hypocrisy, however, doesn’t invalidate what either Sting or Al Gore are saying — it is true that man is on a collision course with nature and that if we don’t moderate our resource use, we are going to be in for some hard times. The elephant in the room that no one will talk about is birth control/population control but that’s a topic for another day…

[Borat]

Yep, you’re right on that one frprovis. In the back of my mind I know this, but every few years I outsmart myself and dip my toe back in with a couple of these “investments”. The story always ends the same… ha ha ha. Okay I’m not actually laughing anymore 🙁

[Borat]

Why did gold go down? You’d think that it would at least remain steady in times like this. I bought GLD and XOM THE DAY BEFORE this stupid crash. I swear, if someone created a fund to short everything I purchase they’d be very wealthy indeed. I just wiped out 6 months worth of CD returns today. Ugggh.

[Borat]

@Borat
Here’s the Source Watch entry about junkscience.com, as well as the background about it’s creator, Steven J. Milloy.

Humm, proof by character assassination.. good!!! real science there!! That reference does not prove whether what he has said is correct or incorrect. It only tries to impugn the author. This is not how science is done!!

Character assassination? Huh? How dare you accuse me of that. The Source Watch site simply points out who this Malloy guy is and how he gets paid, nothing more, nothing less. He is a paid advocate of corporate interests, his entire career depends on keeping them happy. That doesn’t mean that everything he says is true or false, but it does tell you what his motivation is. I find it incredible that people accuse scientists of having a financial motivation while ignoring the fact that many of the “debunkers” do too.

[Borat]

Here’s the Source Watch entry about junkscience.com, as well as the background about it’s creator, Steven J. Milloy.

[Author]

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