That’s a good point. And as a corollary, military and military force is rarely applauded by statists, socialists and big government types in my experience. There is somewhat of a schism there. — NOS4A2

Yeah, those government employees don't make it to the leftist list of nice things that the state gives.

Anyway, the existence of armed forces and how they are formed and organized in basically every nation state shows that not all what is truly collective is ideologically leftist. The fixation on the individual and on his or her rights and freedoms hides this truth.

Yeah, those government employees don't make it to the leftist list of nice things that the state gives.

Anyway, the existence of armed forces and how they are formed and organized in basically every nation state shows that not all what is truly collective is ideologically leftist. The fixation on the individual and on his or her rights and freedoms hides this truth.

In some cases within the individualist tradition individual rights extend to collective organization, for instance in Bastiat.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right.

- The Law

So I do not think it is entirely contradictory.

There's a complete and worrisome silence over at CNN about Sanders winning so many states. Because of this I will leave the country.

The stars have aligned so perfectly for Biden that coincidence can hardly explain it. The campaign ending and endorsements of Klobuchar and Buttigieg and Bloomberg were more than happenstance. I cannot help but imagine that a coterie of established DNC and their media parrots colluded behind the scenes, as they are wont to do, to end Bernie’s chances. The question is: why?

I suspect the DNC (which is a private company) establishment has a lot to lose, and does not want to end up like the GOP in the Trump era with its Nevertrumpers—irrelevant. Biden is a sock-puppet who can’t even remember what state he’s in, and his son is currently under congressional and DOJ investigation. So I do not think they are in it to win the presidency. I think they are doing this for the sole reason of defeating Bernie.

Do they pay you well?

you can associate greater wealth with greater numerical gains just like you can associate greater wealth with greater numerical loss. — BitconnectCarlos

That's not how the steps we just walked through work out.

Do they pay you well?

I’m self-employed/retired. If you want financial advice, let me know.

I’m self-employed/retired. If you want financial advice, let me know. — NOS4A2

You're a volunteer? :grimace:

You're a volunteer?

No need for the mealy-mouthed question. Are you trying to accuse me of something?

You're wasting the few moments you have left in this world doing something that is ultimately meaningless.

You're wasting the few moments you have left in this world doing something that is ultimately meaningless.

Fascinating analysis.

Fascinating analysis. — NOS4A2

It's philosophy. Rolling the shit up the hill, spitting in the wind...

It's philosophy. Rolling the shit up the hill, spitting in the wind...

We should discuss the topic.

We should discuss the topic. — NOS4A2

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

- the Man

I’m not a fan of nihilism. I believe in argument and disputation for its own sake.

Bernie is a great focus for debate. He is the embodiment of a form of American socialism that is on the rise, and we are watching historical movement unfold before our very eyes. The very least we should do is talk about it.

The very least we should do is talk about it. — NOS4A2

We have been. There's nothing you could add that would make the ashes in the mouths of Bernie fans taste any worse.

The root of it is pure idealism: the notion that we have the world in our hands and with a little intelligence and compassion we could do it right.

You cant make a broken heart any worse.

It's not over yet. Biden came back. Bernie could come back too.

We have been. There's nothing you could add that would make the ashes in the mouths of Bernie fans taste any worse.

I don’t seek debate to influence others. I do it for myself, to better my own thinking on these matters.

The root if it is pure idealism: the notion that we have the world in our hands and with a little intelligence and compassion we could do it right.

You cant make a broken heart any worse.

That reminds me of Oscar Wilde, “ A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at”.

But we should remember that quite often the search for Utopia is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It necessitates the sleep of reason.

First of all, your math still wouldn't add up to less than millions for the security you're talking about.

I'm not saying you have complete financial independence at that level, but you have a really nice cushion and more freedom than people who are living paycheck to paycheck. If someone has $250k of liquid assets and their monthly expenses are $4k they could literally spend years doing nothing.

But that aside, it's striking to me that your idea of "freedom" comes with such a narrow view of how one ought to live.

My version of freedom (financial independence) allows to spend and use that money however you want. I'm not telling you that you should do anything. Sit in your house and smoke weed all day for all I care. Go travel. But if you want - and only if you're actually interested in having this freedom - you should tend to try to be fiscally responsible.

A poor person who spends $30/week on starbucks coffee is harming their financial future. A rich person who does the same is not. Again, not my rules, just the reality of the game we're in.

You might talk about how sure, one can take other risks, yada yada, but then you fall back on the "right" choices people have to make in order to survive in your world.

This isn't my world. I don't make the rules. If you want to spend all your money on time shares or expensive cars or whatever I don't care, but don't go railing about how evil capitalism is when you come up short paying the bills or find that you can't retire as early as you thought you could.

That's not how the steps we just walked through work out.

If someone has $100 in the S&P and someone else has $1,000,000 in the S&P who do you think suffered more pain this week? Who do you think had the bigger loss? It's all about exposure. If you're taking on more risk you'll reap bigger rewards and suffered bigger losses.

If someone only has upside risk and no personal downside risk something is very, very wrong. I'm thinking here of bankers in 2008.

This isn't my world. I don't make the rules. — BitconnectCarlos

Since the discussion is about whether the rules should be changed, your back-stepping doesn't make much sense in the context of this thread.

Since the discussion is about whether the rules should be changed, your back-stepping doesn't make much sense in the context of this thread.

You asked why the taxpayer would want more money in their pocket. I gave my answer: Freedom.

You asked why the taxpayer would want more money in their pocket. I gave my answer: Freedom. — BitconnectCarlos

You're a moving target. It may feel like that means you're getting somewhere in the conversation, but it just suggests you can't really defend a position.

Since I've shown that the tax-payer does not actually have more freedom, in fact has less freedom, in most circumstances under a purely capitalist system, your argument makes no sense. And all you had to say when I pointed that discrepency out was basically "bummer, but I don't make the rules"....

So do you have an actual argument or not?

That's completely besides the point, which is disappointing because you seemed to have gotten the point before.

Say there is a simple gambling game where a coin is flipped, and if you get heads you win something, but if you get tails you lose everything. Winnings and the weighting of the coin are such that if you keep playing over a long enough time scale, you're statistically guaranteed to come out ahead. Odds of winning * winnings > odds of losing * losses. I don't care about the actual numbers, plug in your own, the point is just that it's a game that you should definitely play if you can afford to stay in it long enough.

But each play costs $1,000. To your average Joe who probably has at most that much in the bank, playing this game would be a terrible way to spend his money. He'll probably lose everything very quickly, and have to borrow money to keep living so as to keep making money to keep playing long enough to start coming out ahead, all the while he's servicing those debts and so sinking even deeper into the hole. This is why it's a bad idea for average Joe's to go into businesses for themselves: while some startups can be the path to a lucrative new life, most of them fail and cost their founders everything.

But venture capitalists can afford to keep investing in startups over and over and over until they hit the jackpot with the one who makes it big, since they can afford to eat the losses in the meanwhile. Likewise, to a multibillionaire that coin game is a safe investment. Maybe not the best investment, depending on the exact numbers and the alternatives available, but they could park a bunch of money in playing that game and reasonably expect to gradually make some returns on it eventually.

Risks that don't have odds like that (odds of winning * winnings > odds of losing * losses) are definitionally bad investments, and it is inadvisable for anyone to be putting money into them. But though risks that do have odds like that are definitionally good investments, it's much less personally risky for someone with enough money to put into them to wait and see the statistics average out to that positive return, than it is for someone who might only be able to stay in a few rounds.

Seriously, this is basic investment stuff. If you're going to need your money back soon, and can't afford to wait for the market to recover, don't put it in risky investments that go up and down a lot, even if they are relatively safe in the long term. Consequently, those who have enough money that they're not going to need all of it back soon can afford to put a bunch of it into long-term investments and wait out the downs much better than those who need everything they have right now to pay the rent in a month. So people with lots of money can afford to weather the risk and wait out the short-term downturns and reap the long-term profits, while those who don't, can't, at least not without borrowing, which cancels out their long-term profits with long-term debt servicing.

This is why I mentioned myself with this week's market downturn. I can afford to not care about the downturn, because if it doesn't come back up for a couple of months, I'll be fine. I'm only investing money I won't need for a very long time. Someone who's life is counting on having more money in their brokerage account at the end of this month than at the start of it, on the other hand, might be fucked.

you can associate greater wealth with greater numerical gains just like you can associate greater wealth with greater numerical loss. it's two sides of the same coin and to ignore one side isn't right. at the end of the day though it's up to the portfolio owner how much risk they're is prepared to take on. i know plenty of well off people who take very little risk.

i don't necessarily associate less wealth to greater costs, but i do acknowledge that poverty has costs. if by costs you mean investment losses this is definitely not the case. — BitconnectCarlos

A clear example of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer is found in predatory lending, which pretty much all banks are involved with, btw. With low-risk, someone with 10k to spare could get a high return. Low-income and desperate borrowers pay a ridiculously high-interest rate.

predatory lending, which pretty much all banks are involved with — praxis

My analysis of the root flaw of capitalism could be phrased as "all lending (at interest) is predatory". There are degrees, of course, what we normally call predatory lending is just such an egregious case that we can't help but see what's going on there. But fundamentally all lending at interest (and rent more generally, as interest is just rent on money) is of the same qualitative character: those who have wealth to spare can profit at the expense of those who need to borrow it just to keep going.

A clear example of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer is found in predatory lending, which pretty much all banks are involved with, btw. With low-risk, someone with 10k to spare could get a high return. Low-income and desperate borrowers pay a ridiculously high-interest rate.

Where is this low risk high return for $10k?

But each play costs $1,000.

I've mentioned this before: There is no minimum cost to enter stocks or cryptocurrency. You could throw $5 into an extremely high risk one.

Investing in start ups is a different game, I'll agree with you there.

You're treating investment like it's a blackjack table with a $20k minimum or something and despite being a good deal a loss means losing everything. This isn't how normal investments operate. Maybe this is how start-up investment is.... I don't know. I don't invest in start ups. I do know that venture capitalism definitely does require expertise and remember my start up fact from last post: Something like 90% of start ups go broke within the first few years. You could easily invest in 10 or 20 start ups and they all fail. It's not statistically an inevitability that all of the start ups you invest in will earn you money in the long-run. You could just go broke (and plenty of VCs do lose money.)

I am not defending the current financial system either. I hate the accredited investor system which gives higher net worth individuals investment access to riskier, early-stage investments deemed "too risky" for normal folks. I think the rationale here is paternalism, but in any case I'm against it.

I don't even care about reforming the system anymore; it's beyond redemption. Burn it down. It's outrageous that banks and other companies charge so much for remittances.

That's why I'm into crypto, if you can't tell. We're building our own system. You're welcome to join us. Plenty of risk and no minimums, I guarantee it.

Payday lenders have low losses and high profits (34%+ return on investment).

a) We're hopefully both hoping to discuss the issue and flush out the other person's ideas as opposed to challenging them on every aspect and just hoping to beat them (i.e. we are engaging in good faith.) Another reason we're able to have the conversation is that we both share common assumptions. — BitconnectCarlos

Exactly. I think in this case, both are true. I assert it for myself and bring myself to take as a given that you do as well, until proven otherwise.

I believe that we're molded by our own unique psychological characteristics to a considerable extent, and for that reason I am extremely wary about me - with my own weird psychological quirks and weird experiences - laying down that phrase "irrational" on others when rationality, by its very nature, is universal. It would basically be me claiming that I can stand outside my own body and experiences so it's a very strong claim. — BitconnectCarlos

Not necessarily "outside," no. Rather to observe phenomenologically -- objectively, is possible but rare indeed. So you're right, it is universally available to human beings. The fact that most of us don't use this "mode of our being" (rationality) all that often in our lives isn't even a "bad" thing, either. By extension, irrationality is really free from moral judgment also; it's simply a fact -- after all, it's where most of us dwell most of the time, for "better" for "worse" (value judgments based only in terms of our stated goals).

If I ever come down hard on irrational behavior, it's probably because I'm doing so in the context of political action (or inaction) where it's very important to make the correct choices given a goal or goals, which are in turn are born out of a certain system of beliefs and values. Especially true at this point in human history.

In a way, it is this "system of beliefs and values" -- call it a philosophy, theory, framework, worldview, analysis, interpretation, etc. -- I assume we all hold.

I do this for two reasons: 1) I assume my fellow interlocutors are themselves rational and 2) because we all profess the same values, at heart.

Even if someone is conversing with me that holds an apparently antagonistic worldview, it's been my experience that there are commonalities even here, which usually reside somewhere in the person's semantic system -- in other words, using different words to express the same truth. -- all other differences aside, there's almost always this commonality, down to even "pathological" levels. No man is truly without a philosophy or religion.

To name "two" examples: ideas about being and human being (or human "nature"). Concepts like God, Allah, Brahman, spirit, soul, Ahura Mazda, or whatever, have all described "being" in a sense, interpreting it and our place "in" it or "of" it. In my view, it's all various interpretations, conceptualizations, and semantics. The words, meanings, definitions, descriptions, etc., certainly do matter and are all very interesting in their differences, but all roughly getting at the same truth. (I do not believe this makes everything equally supported, useful, "correct," "right," or "good," necessarily -- those are value judgments based on our own perspective.)

That's a lot of words, but it feel getting to the bedrock frees us up for more pragmatic considerations, like "What do we do about it?"