033803throwaway

Joined 7 years ago

Karma
105
Submissions
22
Member since
Jun 19
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Recent submissions

Comment · 7 years ago
I don't downvote. It is a cowardly habit.

There is nothing wrong with investing in a productive enterprise and expecting to share in the profits of that enterprise.

If a man is starving (or, worse, has convinced himself he needs a new iThing when he does not) and you loan him money you are either violating charity or enabling debt-peonage, respectively.

This is setting aside the exponential nature of compound interest, which is why debt-based economies always go bust, and focusing on the individual morality of the transaction.

Comment · 7 years ago
The Kenyans are right.

What they need is money, not loans, and, in particular, not loans against consumption rather than production, which is what broadly available credit inevitably devolves into. (Look at college loans, which started off ostensibly as an investment in productive assets and has devolved into financing four years of heavily curated consumption followed by crushing student debt.)

Even loans against production are dangerous and eventually lead to debt peonage and wealth concentration, as we have seen time and time again, from roman times onward.

The problem is usury, and there is a long, historical argument about it that is completely ignored in the west. This is because history is written by the victors, and the usurers won. We are all usurers (or aspiring usurers) now.

Comment · 7 years ago
> What Patch offers instead is to take a piece of your home equity (currently limited to $250k maximum) and sell the upside on it to a investment fund.

Sometimes I can't help but feel that we deserve what's coming.

Comment · 7 years ago
Or someone, anyone, make a functional clone of it.

I don't care much which OS I have to run, they are all the same now. I just want a smart phone that fits in a single hand.

I tried the palm and it is a bit too small, and the battery life was insanely bad.

Comment · 7 years ago
Social trust has been declining for half a century:

https://archive.is/u9Jex

It's one of the most pressing issues in sociology and is rarely discussed at all, and typically discussed dishonestly when it is.

Comment · 7 years ago
This is great advice in general, but FU money gets tricky when you have negative interest rates on deck.

We are one stock market pull back away from catastrophe even for wealthy boomers.

Interesting times.

Comment · 7 years ago
Progress & Poverty (1879) by Henry George

Orthodoxy (1908) by G.K. Chesterton

The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Comment · 7 years ago
Interesting that psychedelics are being pushed by elites via popular media like Joe Rogan, etc.
Comment · 7 years ago
Amen.

And congratulations.

But you are not a useless worm and this is not a piece of dust.

Comment · 7 years ago
Marriage is a wonderful institution and the children that come from it are the greatest gift you can be given.

Our culture tells us the opposite. But our culture is insane and wants you to be an isolated, rootless, consumer wage slave.

Comment · 7 years ago
If that is the case, would it not be simpler, If the government simply dissolved the people And elected another?
Comment · 7 years ago
Comment · 7 years ago
If trump is re-elected it may be the last time a republican wins a presidential election in the current system, due to demographic changes in key states (FL, TX, NC, etc.)

If the electoral college is abolished, it could actually end up getting another few republicans elected, since it would incentivize republican turnout in solidly democratic states like California.

Comment · 7 years ago
I wouldn't.

Which is why I view the situation as hopeless, but not serious.

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