End of the Road
tneig
Posts: 1,505 ✭✭✭
Watching this movie for the first time.
How long can it go before the edge of the cliff.
How long can it go before the edge of the cliff.
COA
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The Warning
"Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed." - Doug Casey
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Now I'm in the next level of awareness, and I'm very concerned.
It's in my top 3 all time favorite movies and I highly recommend it to get an idea of what it would be like if things went really bad in the world.
<< <i>I don't subscribe to the doomsday theory much, but I feel if it did happen, it would be like this movie The Road
It's in my top 3 all time favorite movies and I highly recommend it to get an idea of what it would be like if things went really bad in the world. >>
The movie was very good. The book was tremendous. A must read. It's funny when I read it I thought that Viggo Mortensen would be perfect for the role of the father. This was written by Cormac McCarthy
who also wrote No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian amongst others. Blood Meridian will go down as one of the best books written in the 20th century and McCarthy as the best novelist of the this same period. Read Blood Meridian if you haven't. No one like him since Faulkner.
I collect McCarthy first edition books.
MJ
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
authors who ever walked the face of the earth. But as a philosopher she was probably second rate
at best. Yes, she imparted her characters with remarkably clear motivations and a sound philosophy
but this is literature and not philosophy. One can't live in the concrete world as a book character or
with any a philosophy based on grinding axes. I actually have a great deal of respect for her but, like
Freud who also couldn't see his own weaknesses in the light of day the misunderstanding of their work
has led to a great deal of evil. Freud to the era of genocide and irresponsibility and Rand to the era of
greed.
1987 should have shown all observers the error of our ways. It was too early in the era of greed to
see the specific motivations of all the players but it was apparent the problenm was bank shenanigans
in the form of derivatives and common superstition in the form of computer trading that caused the stock
market to fall to zero mid-day Tuesday. But we didn't take heed and rather than regulating derivatives
out of existence they were expanded. Rather than abandoning computer trading it was pushed under-
ground. Since then we've seen disaster after disaster in the markets and now the markets are effect-
ively regulated and choreographed by the PPT who can't allow market forces to assert themselves since
it would all implode almost immediately. You can't have bond prices seeking their true level when that
level is zero.
Bernanke can't take his finger out of the dike and it might not be repairable until he does.
As to greed, it is present at all levels, not just at the top.
I knew it would happen.
<< <i>
As to greed, it is present at all levels, not just at the top. >>
Yes. Our entire culture is built on irresponsibility because it's had almost exactly 100 years to
grow and flourish. It has permeated almost everything an even caused the collapse of the ed-
ucational system.
Man has always shown greed but we've always known that unchecked greed is evil. Greed is
evil. We always individually and collectively tried to suppress it just as we do all of our faults
and foibels. But Rand made greed seem positive to many of her readers and they took the con-
cept and institutionalized it and the economy has been the victim ever since. It's the victim be-
cause greed doesn't take into account how an individual acquires wealth but only the amount
of wealth he acquires. There is the absurd belief that this is a fine distinction so some are paid
exorbitant sums to destroy products and companies in the name of short term gains; in the name
of personal gains for the very few at the expense of the economy and its function. They amass
huge fortunes by destruction rather than by production. They extract value from products to fool
customers into paying more than they are worth.
We are now engaged in a race to the bottom to see which product with no value at all can be sold
for the most money. We mine materials from the earth at great expense and fabricate them so
they are almost immediately reburied in landfills. In this process the CEO's are growing wealthy
faster than ever before in human history while the standard of living is going down and threatens
to crash to the point of mass starvation. The people causing the problem aren't being punished
but, instead, rewarded. Thisa is made possible by the widespread belief that greed is good. If a
manufacturer can add chemicals and water to a food to trick customers into thinking they are getting
more than it's really worth then the inventor deserves more money! Nevermind that the chemicals
haven't even been proven safe and the world is poorer and the net effect is there's less wealth in
the world because the miscreant gets more money and doesn't need to worry about jail time in a
society that values greed even above wealth and life.
Only the poor man and the middle class is expected to be guided by the principles of morality and
common sense but since the schools have failed and morality is now relative and based on the amount
of money you have he is locked into his own narrow world and blind to massive evaporation and
appropriation of wealth. All action is individual and based on individual belief. As a society we no
longer believe people are responsible and we believe greed is a net positive in the world. Ayn Rand's
beliefs were likely formed by the wrongs being commited in Russia and their suppression of product-
ive people. As a philosophy they might have been applicable to the Soviet Union of the 1930's but
they were never appropriate in this country. You don't cure creeping socialism as this country was
experiencing by institutionalizing greed. It is compounding one problem with a more serious one.
Getting rid of the greed would be very easy if not for the fact that we no longer believe anyone is
responsible. But the wealthy have grown so powerful that they tell Congress what to do. We have
grown so irresponsible we'll have great difficulty interrupting this. The implication is all these trends
could continue until they cause themselves to implode in the unforeseeable future. It could be very
very ugly.
As is no one wealthy has any vested interest in seeing higher metals prices and as the middle class
suffers further supplies can increase causing severe pressure on prices. Of course when the opportunity
presents itself greed might well find a vested interest in higher prices.
These are interesting times indeed.
cept and institutionalized it and the economy has been the victim ever since.
Well, I'm not the expert on Ayn Rand, but I don't see her making greed out as a positive thing in Atlas Shrugged. Nothing of the sort. I see her book as a justification of true capitalism as the impetus for human advancement.
I knew it would happen.
Society is not more greedy today than it was a 100 years ago or that it will be a 100 years from now.
Groucho Marx
Will the government take some action. They certainly must have considered scenarios.
What are the fall backs? The gold the nation has?
<< <i>So what happens when it starts, and inflation goes crazy and the dollar starts to fall? >>
be glad your savings are sitting in metal
<< <i>Will the government take some action. They certainly must have considered scenarios. >>
they always take action, that's why we are where we are
<< <i>What are the fall backs? The gold the nation has? >>
create more currency until it becomes worthless, then create a new currency - wash, rinse, repeat. keep making the same mistakes and hope for a different ending. In the meantime metals continue to be be strong.
"Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed." - Doug Casey
<< <i>I see her book as a justification of true capitalism as the impetus for human advancement. >>
"Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed." - Doug Casey
Box of 20
<< <i>Ayn Rand was a moron. Actually to give the devil her due she was probably one of the 100 best
authors who ever walked the face of the earth. But as a philosopher she was probably second rate
at best. Yes, she imparted her characters with remarkably clear motivations and a sound philosophy
but this is literature and not philosophy. One can't live in the concrete world as a book character or
with any a philosophy based on grinding axes. I actually have a great deal of respect for her but, like
Freud who also couldn't see his own weaknesses in the light of day the misunderstanding of their work
has led to a great deal of evil. Freud to the era of genocide and irresponsibility and Rand to the era of
greed.
1987 should have shown all observers the error of our ways. It was too early in the era of greed to
see the specific motivations of all the players but it was apparent the problenm was bank shenanigans
in the form of derivatives and common superstition in the form of computer trading that caused the stock
market to fall to zero mid-day Tuesday. But we didn't take heed and rather than regulating derivatives
out of existence they were expanded. Rather than abandoning computer trading it was pushed under-
ground. Since then we've seen disaster after disaster in the markets and now the markets are effect-
ively regulated and choreographed by the PPT who can't allow market forces to assert themselves since
it would all implode almost immediately. You can't have bond prices seeking their true level when that
level is zero.
Bernanke can't take his finger out of the dike and it might not be repairable until he does. >>
I thought she offered a rather insightful and excellent critique of communism.