Quick Hits
- A recent realization is that speculative bubbles are necessarily predatory. There's nothing else to conclude from what Henry George observed in the 1880s, or what we've observed over the last decade. Anybody who believes that a government owned and controlled by the banks forced the banks to loan money against the banks' wills is a complete and utter fool.
- I've long been of the view that placing blame for what went wrong is completely useless. What matters is understanding WHY things went wrong so you can avoid the same thing happening again. To that end, as much as I have observed centuries of lies in the economic profession, who is to blame is of little interest or consequence to me. The point is to identify the problem (false messaging) and deal with it.
- For a much longer time, I have been of the view that the First Amendment was designed by the founders to help troublemakers self-identify. I've clearly taken on the role of a troublemaker, but the good news is that so few people read my scribblings that the scale of the trouble I potentially threaten is so miniscule that it is not worthy of notice. Right? Hellooooo!? Right?
- I was asked today whether I was aware of the New World Order threat. I had to admit that I was not well-versed, but that I generally understand the mythology behind it (at least in some of its instantiations), and that I am open to being convinced about it. That being said, focusing on 2 above, I have no control over what other people do. The only thing I can control is my own actions.
- Hubris = opportunity (thank you, by the way)
- If we were to create a bell curve to represent evil v. good, where "good" equals the people within a standard deviation of a mean, and "evil" equals everybody more than a standard deviation less or more than the median, we'd roughly identify the number of evil and good people in the world. The problem is that the size of the standard deviation depends entirely upon the values of the society in which the individual operates.That is, the more depraved the society, the narrower the "bell" of the bell curve. Hint: we have a VERY narrow bell these days.
- A big thank you to the people who think beyond themselves and try to make things better for the world at large. You're awake and human. Forgive the rest of us who aren't.
