Re: Financial topics
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:16 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPCMPaLykhQ
straight up
straight up
Generational theory, international history and current events
https://www.gdxforum.com/forum/
Higgenbotham in 2009 wrote:The distinction in my mind is one of speed and scale. By speed, I mean the speed of response to any systemic crisis to feed liquidity in and continue to grow the bubble. By scale, I mean the fact that speed of response allows a bubble to grow larger. A fiat money system allows for greater speed and scale, meaning the Central Bank can extend the bubble longer and grow the bubble larger than can be done on a gold standard. There are a number of factors besides whether the money base is gold or fiat that are greater determining factors. The most important in my mind is the leverage employed. The leverage employed by hedge funds, for example, was more than 100 to 1 in some instances. Banks employ leverage of about 10 to 1; therefore, it can be seen that the introduction of hedge funds and the failure to regulate them was a bigger contributor to the bubble than whether the base money was gold or fiat.
A relevant note on this--a headline from yesterday said something to the effect that Geithner is saying speed of response is critical at this juncture. There are limits and the bigger the bubble gets, the faster it leaks when it does start leaking, and the faster the authorities have to move to grow it bigger until finally there comes a time when they cannot move fast enough.
These are the people I am calling "The 97th Percentile". They run all of our institutions including the Fed. A person who is in the 97th percentile would typically be the smartest person in a room of 30 people. So they think they're pretty smart, but they're really not.John wrote:There's a certain personality type that one sees every day these days:
A person who believes he's the smartest one in the room, in every
room, and who therefore makes bad decisions, but then doubles down on
the bad decisions, because he can't admit to any mistake, sometimes
resulting in disaster. Obama is in that category, but so are a lot of
other people.
The woman who let you record did so because she was the smartest one
in the room, and knew that she could outsmart you even if you recorded
her conversations. As you say, she was too stupid to know how stupid
she was.
John wrote: Then there's the other problem -- what's the point? I ask myself that
question every day. Only 30-40 people thought my book was valuable
enough to spend a few dollars to buy it. I've posted over 3,000
articles on Breitbart since 2010, but they've made it clear that they
don't consider it worth paying for. It's nice that you admire me, and
I appreciate it, but the bottom line is that if what I'm doing were
worth anything, then somebody somewhere would be willing to fund it on
a regular basis, either by direct funding, or by paying me a salary as
a journalist, analyst or Senior Software Engineer. But nobody is. So
everything I do is worthless. This is the Cassandra curse. And if
everything I do is worthless, then I'm worthless. That's the way I
feel. So what's the point?
John wrote: How much was Cassandra worth as a human being? She was ridiculed when
she predicted the fall of Troy. After her predictions came true, she
was assaulted and raped. Then she became the slave and mistress of
the Greek king Agamemnon. She warned Agamemnon that if they return to
Greece then his wife, Clytemnestra, will kill them both. Agamemnon
did not believe her and they returned to Greece, where Clytemnestra
killed them both.
So Cassandra was ALSO a completely worthless human being, who
accomplished nothing that anyone valued.
OK, let me start at some generic beginning and then work toward the specifics. A generic beginning could/would start with what industries "translate into money" by having sufficient payback from advertising to advertise all evening on cable TV to the masses. And what I see are a few categories popping up repeatedly: junk food (most notably), pharmaceuticals (presumably profitable due to all the junk food Americans consume), insurance, and ambulance chasing law firms. Maybe I missed a couple categories (Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers now comes to mind) but you get the idea.John wrote: I have a particularly harsh view of life (or at least my life) that if
something has no monetary value then it's worthless, and therefore the
stuff that I've done -- the book, the articles, the software
engineering -- is all completely worthless, and therefore I'm a
completely worthless human being. It's nice being told that I'm
benefiting mankind, or other kumbaya nonsense, but if it doesn't
translate into money, then it's worthless.