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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 14:26:27 GMT -5
Post by zendancer on Oct 8, 2011 14:26:27 GMT -5
Well, since we're on this subject, let me recommend "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis, the same guy who wrote "Liar's Poker" and "Moneyball." I had to read TBS three times to really understand the issues, but it was worth it. Subsequently, the guy with Asperger's Syndrome (I can't think of his name at the moment) came to our university down the street at the invitation of the business school. I went to hear him speak, and he is just as brilliant and strange as one might imagine from reading the book.
Lewis's latest is "Boomerang" and it is an easy one-time read that is incrediby funny. After reading about Greece, it seems obvious that they are toast. Iceland, Ireland, and Germany are equally unbelievable in their own culturally particular ways.
Lewis is a synthesizer, and I am always amazed at his ability to look at seemingingly disparate facts and see some of the fascinating patterns that underlie them.
In Boomerang a hedge fund manager tells Lewis about buying a million bucks worth of nickels (a nickel is currently worth more than a nickel.) I picked up the book last Sunday, finished it on Monday, and then went to the bank and bought two hundred bucks worth of nickels just to satisfy my curiosity. They weighed forty pounds, so I decided not to buy any more. I'd need a forklift to move them around. A hundred grand in nickels would weigh ten tons! LOL
When the Fed asked the local bank of the fund manager why he wanted a hundred tons of nickels, the bank called him up and he responded, "I like nickels." Gotta love it.
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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 16:11:23 GMT -5
Post by tathagata on Oct 8, 2011 16:11:23 GMT -5
btw tath - did I read last night's entries correct? You were drunk, in a parking lot, hitting on chicks? lol #winning Haha...sitting in a parking lot yes...I do that often....just park the car and sit lol....I like sitting outside...hitting on girls no lol...drunk yes...on Soma Rasa....the original Soma Rasa...Krishna's Soma Rasa lol
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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 16:25:02 GMT -5
Post by popee2 on Oct 8, 2011 16:25:02 GMT -5
perfect...
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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 16:26:25 GMT -5
Post by therealfake on Oct 8, 2011 16:26:25 GMT -5
Do you make your own Soma, or do you have an Iranian connection..?
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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 16:51:18 GMT -5
Post by therealfake on Oct 8, 2011 16:51:18 GMT -5
I hid that secret in the techniques TRF....muahahahaha OMG....Now I'll never find out the secret ingredient in Soma Unless I learn to speed read...
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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 16:55:20 GMT -5
Post by tathagata on Oct 8, 2011 16:55:20 GMT -5
Reading will not be enough, but its a good start lol.
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bubbles
Oct 8, 2011 20:46:31 GMT -5
Post by ivory on Oct 8, 2011 20:46:31 GMT -5
Yeah, I think most of the Occupy Peeps are thinking the same thing...
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Post by ernie on Oct 9, 2011 6:52:14 GMT -5
ernie, therealfake, I don't sense any 'spine' in the 'American' people. I just see special interest groups of all kinds each with their own agenda. This is just the beginning of the fracturing of the social contract that has bound us together, this social contract is weakening day by day and will become uttrely useless. See who has the power now. I don't think the 'American' people are interested in real change, but rather 'me'. klaus, There never really has been a social contract binding us all together. Blacks came to this country in chains, and were further sold down the river during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 20,000,000 indigenous North Americans were slaughtered when this country was 'settled' (try and find that fact in any U.S. History school text). Asians were allowed entry, then handed a shovel and pick-axe to back-breakingly build the railroads and canals. Once these "infrastructures" were put in "their" place, the wealthy got down to the real business of making profits by putting our children to work, with some help from our government, and a very laissez-faire approach to "law" from the Supreme Court. Employers suggested that it "added to the moral fiber of the child by instilling a value system of work ethic." In 1908, Lewis Hine made this observation about the practice- “There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work.” So much for the social contract that has bound us together. The closest anyone has come to a social contract is through organized labor. But when Nixon, Ford, and Reagan "saw the light" regarding organized labor, they went about the business of destroying organized labor, too. The result? 400 'economically privileged Americans' have amassed as much wealth as 150,000,000 working-class Americans. And let's not forget the 46,000,000 Americans living in poverty in this country. The poverty numbers are consistent. In the county I live in, 22% of the children are at risk of hunger. The response from the conservative majority in the House of Representatives? They want to "go forward" by eliminating the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as- food stamps. Our congressional representative (who comes from a family which took advantage of tax incentives and loopholes, and now owns two tool manufacturing plants in, China) affirmed that for us last week at a town hall meeting. You know, we used to feed the world when I was a kid. Now we're starving our own people. Just a few more facts... Adults providing unpaid care to a family member or friend 50+ years of age?- 16% Familes that don't think they have enough for a comfortable retirement? - 53% Head of a family, age 50-64, without retirement savings? 34% Families in 2010 living paycheck to paycheck? 75% From 1989 to 2009- Increase of fulltime earnings for men?- 3% Increase of average cost of one year of college?- 73% Increase of health insurance premiums?- 182% Increase of median debt of middle-class families?- 292% (Gosh...I wonder how those 400 Americans amassed so much wealth?) Let's not forget that the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the same rights as individual citizens. Talk about class warfare.
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bubbles
Oct 9, 2011 18:27:35 GMT -5
Post by klaus on Oct 9, 2011 18:27:35 GMT -5
ernie,
The social contract is a political instrument and we all to some degree participate. I am aware of the history of this country and I have no argument with your reply #53. I was speaking in the present tense.
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bubbles
Oct 11, 2011 8:14:57 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2011 8:14:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I think most of the Occupy Peeps are thinking the same thing... <photo poking fun at the seeming hypocrisy of people protesting against corporations whilst fully utilizing the products of corporations> i appreciate the cleverness in that pic. however, ernie paints the factual reality that is being protested. here's another photo that more accurately reflects who is protesting: and here is a link to the OWS declaration: nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/.... They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. .... There is a bubble-story that many people share that includes the theme 'there is no alternative' (famously stated by Margaret Thatcher). No alternative to this type of vast exploitation -- that's what is being addressed right now, IMO.
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bubbles
Oct 11, 2011 10:55:20 GMT -5
Post by popee2 on Oct 11, 2011 10:55:20 GMT -5
Of more interest to me is the 'We vs. Them' dichotomy that always arises during times of distress. Left/right in this case, but like minded people commonly coalesce into groups, many times in opposition to some other group. Safety or power, in numbers, and all that.
But exclusivity will always fail in the long run.
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bubbles
Oct 11, 2011 11:18:46 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2011 11:18:46 GMT -5
But exclusivity will always fail in the long run. that was Marx's point too.
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bubbles
Oct 11, 2011 11:29:14 GMT -5
Post by popee2 on Oct 11, 2011 11:29:14 GMT -5
Marx was a pretty sharp fellow, but of course people have taken his words, then added their own, and the results were something he would not likely have agreed with. Lenin and Mao comes to mind, as does some contemporaries of ours.
But I was trying to point to something deeper than economics.
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bubbles
Oct 11, 2011 11:46:10 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2011 11:46:10 GMT -5
Marx was a pretty sharp fellow, but of course people have taken his words, then added their own, and the results were something he would not likely have agreed with. Lenin and Mao comes to mind, as does some contemporaries of ours. Yes and actually Adam Smith and Ricardo sound pretty reasonable in retrospect. It'd be interesting to know what they thought of the current situation too. Adam Smith might be right there sleeping in Zucotti Park. Well deeper than the bubbles is where the beer is. Cheers to tasting that which is below the head. I prefer mine bitter or stout. yum.
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bubbles
Oct 11, 2011 12:38:13 GMT -5
Post by popee2 on Oct 11, 2011 12:38:13 GMT -5
nice max, yeah adam smith had a very perceptive eye, and I think we may be nearing the end of an era, his "invisible hand" has been replaced by central banks and politicians, and that is sure to end badly. lager for sipping, barley wine for deeply profound nights of introspection who is john galt? lol
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